title: Adult romantic attachment, negative emotionality, and depressive symptoms in middle aged men: a multivariate genetic analysis.
abstract: Adult romantic attachment styles reflect ways of relating in close relationships and are associated with depression and negative emotionality. We estimated the extent to which dimensions of romantic attachment and negative emotionality share genetic or environmental risk factors in 1,237 middle-aged men in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA). A common genetic factor largely explained the covariance between attachment-related anxiety, attachment-related avoidance, depressive symptoms, and two measures of negative emotionality: Stress-Reaction (anxiety), and Alienation. Multivariate results supported genetic and environmental differences in attachment. Attachment-related anxiety and attachment-related avoidance were each influenced by additional genetic factors not shared with other measures; the genetic correlation between the attachment measure-specific genetic factors was 0.41, indicating some, but not complete overlap of genetic factors. Genetically informative longitudinal studies on attachment relationship dimensions can help to illuminate the role of relationship-based risk factors in healthy aging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0738, USA. cfranz@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Carol E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Franz
authors.forename: Timothy P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: York
authors.forename: Lindon J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Eaves
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Prom-Wormley
authors.forename: Kristen C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Jacobson
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lyons
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Grant
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xian
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Panizzon
authors.forename: Erica
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jimenez
authors.forename: William S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Kremen
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging; D003863:Depression / Q000235:genetics*; D004200:Diseases in Twins; D004644:Emotions; D005824:Genetics, Behavioral; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D008957:Models, Genetic; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012107:Research Design; D018454:Spouses