Empirical Evidence for the Developmental Origins of Autonomic Stress Regulation: An Attachment Account

The quality of the developmental context is proposed to calibrate lifelong stress regulation. Integrating attachment theory with the adaptive calibration model, we tested whether adults exhibit distinct autonomic stress profiles and whether profile membership is associated with attachment security. Adults (N = 110; 57% female; M_Age = 20.46 years) completed the attachment script assessment (ASA) while heart rate variability (HRV) and skin conductance level (SCL) were continuously recorded as indices of parasympathetic and sympathetic activity. Latent profile analysis (LPA) and K-Means clustering were employed to identify autonomic profiles, and multinomial models were used to test ASA as a predictor of profile membership. Three profiles emerged from the interaction between HRV and SCL activation. In multinomial models with the buffered profile as reference, higher attachment security was associated with lower odds of the unemotional profile across both LPA and K-Means (OR = 0.49 and OR = 0.45), whereas the sensitive and buffered profiles did not differ. An exploratory interaction with sex emerged in the latent profile solution, with females showing higher ASA scores than males within the sensitive profile. Findings support the hypothesis that autonomic stress profiles are linked to attachment security, with lower secure base script knowledge associated with the more dysregulated unemotional profile.