Genetic and environmental factors underlying the associations between attachment styles and mental and physical...

Research suggests that people who have relatively secure attachment styles tend to experience better mental and physical health across the lifespan (Pietromonaco & Beck, 2019; X. Zhang et al., 2022). Despite the growing body of research linking attachment styles to health outcomes, relatively little is known about why or how these associations arise. The present study analyzed data from 1,377 older adult twins, who completed measures of their general and relationship-specific attachment styles and five health assessments-depressive symptoms, self-reported mental and physical health, physical illnesses, and waist circumference. Leveraging the study's twin design, we estimated the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the associations between attachment styles and health. Our findings suggest that the genetic factors underlying depression are largely overlapping with the genetic factors underlying attachment anxiety (e.g., genetic correlation, r_a, = .70 between general attachment anxiety and depression) and show a moderate degree of overlap with the genetic factors underlying attachment avoidance (average r_a = .34). In general, genetic and environmental factors each accounted for approximately half of the total phenotypic associations between attachment styles and mental health outcomes. Furthermore, we found moderate genetic correlations between attachment anxiety and physical health outcomes (average |r_a| = .30), but little-to-no overlap among the environmental factors that contribute to attachment anxiety and physical health. Thus, the associations between attachment anxiety and physical health outcomes appear to be primarily attributable to a common or shared genetic liability. Attachment avoidance shared weak or near-zero associations with indicators of physical health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).