Center for Family Research, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Attach Hum Dev. 2022 Jun;24(3):339-352. doi: 10.1080/14616734.2021.1976934. Epub 2021 Oct 7.
Attachment experiences are thought to contribute to physical health across the lifespan. Evidence suggests that attachment style may serve as a protective factor for individuals' physical health by mitigating the negative effects of social and environmental risk factors. In the present study, we evaluated how attachment styles may moderate the link between African American adolescents' exposure to neighborhood poverty and accelerated cellular aging in young adulthood. Analyses revealed that allostatic load at age 19 mediated the association between neighborhood poverty in adolescence and changes in cellular aging from age 20 to 27. Notably, attachment avoidance (but not attachment anxiety) moderated this association, such that allostatic load was only associated with faster cellular aging for individuals who were high in avoidance. These findings suggest that allostatic load may give rise to faster cellular aging, but these detrimental effects of allostatic load can be offset by young adults' effective use of attachment figures.
依附体验被认为有助于个体一生的身体健康。有证据表明,依附模式可能通过减轻社会和环境风险因素的负面影响,成为个体身体健康的保护因素。在本研究中,我们评估了依附模式如何调节非裔美国青少年在青春期接触邻里贫困与成年早期细胞加速衰老之间的联系。分析结果显示,在 19 岁时的应激负荷在青春期邻里贫困与从 20 岁到 27 岁期间细胞衰老变化之间起中介作用。值得注意的是,依附回避(而非依附焦虑)调节了这种关联,即对于回避程度较高的个体,应激负荷仅与更快的细胞衰老相关。这些发现表明,应激负荷可能导致更快的细胞衰老,但这些应激负荷的不利影响可以通过年轻人有效利用依附对象来抵消。