ArticleScientific reports2025
Securely stressed: association between attachment and empathic stress in romantic couples.
Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Empirical Evidence for the Developmental Origins of Autonomic Stress Regulation: An Attachment Account.Developmental psychobiology · 2026Article
- Social conflict imagery induces stress, social and physical pain: sex differences in autonomic and affective responses and pathways to resilience and wellbeing.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Stress-related disorders are common in modern societies. What adds to the burden is empathic stress, arising when observing another's stress elicits a stress response in the observer. In romantic couples, we investigated the association between empathic stress and adult attachment-a deep emotional bond between partners-to understand its inherent facets of risk and resilience. Psychosocial stress was induced in one partner ("target") while the other passively observed the situation ("observer"). Stress reactivity was measured in both partners via salivary cortisol, heart rate, high-frequency heart rate variability, and questionnaires. Observers' attachment representations were assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview. We found higher cortisol resonance-that is, proportionality in stress reactivity in targets and observers-in dyads with securely as opposed to insecurely attached (specifically insecure-dismissing) observers. Consistent with attachment as a resilience factor, our results suggest that securely attached individuals are physiologically more in tune with their partners during psychosocially stressful situations, possibly allowing for mutual understanding and triggering supportive behavior. However, suggesting a potential risk inherent to attachment security, in contexts of frequent or extreme partner stress, securely attached individuals may also be prone to excessive empathic stress activation and subsequent health impairments.
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Registered trials
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