Insecure attachment and personality disorder: a twin study of adults

Abstract

This study used 239 twin pairs from a volunteer community sample to investigate how anxious and avoidant attachment are related to personality disorder (PD). Factor analysis showed that self‐reported anxious attachment and 11 PD scales from the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Problems loaded onto one factor (emotional dysregulation), and avoidant attachment and four PD scales loaded onto a second factor (inhibitedness). Biometric models indicated that 40% of the variance in anxious attachment was heritable, and 63% of its association with corresponding PD dimensions was attributable to common genetic effects. Avoidant attachment was influenced by the shared environment instead of genes. Correlations between avoidance and corresponding PD dimensions were attributable to experiences in the nonshared environment that influenced both variables. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ainsworth

M. D. S.

Blehar

M. C.

Waters

Wall

(1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Akaike

(1987).Factor analysis and the AIC. Psychometrica, 52,317–322.

Alexander

P. C.

(1992).Application of attachment theory to the study of sexual abuse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60,185–195.

Allen

J. P.

Hauser

S. T.

Borman‐Spurrell

(1996).Attachment theory as a framework for understanding sequelae of severe adolescent psychopathology: An 11‐year follow‐up study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64,254–263.

Bakermans‐Kranenburg

M. J.

van IJzendoorn

M. H.

Schuengel

Bokhorst

C. L.

(2004).The importance of shared environment in infant–father attachment: A behavioral genetic study of the Attachment Q‐Sort. Journal of Family Psychology, 18,545–549.

Bartholomew

Horowitz

(1991).Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four‐category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61,226–244.

Bartholomew

Kwong

M. J.

Hart

S. D.

(2001). Attachment. In W. J.Livesley (Ed.), Handbook of personality disorders(pp.196–230). New York: Guilford Press.

Bartholomew

Shaver

P. R.

(1998). Methods of assessing adult attachment: Do they converge?In J. A.Simpson , & W. S.Rholes (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships(pp.25–45). New York: Guilford Press.

Bokhorst

C. L.

Bakermans‐Kranenburg

M. J.

Fearon

R. M. P.

van IJzendoorn

M. H.

Fonagy

Schuengel

(2003).The importance of shared environment in mother‐infant attachment security: A behavioral genetic study. Child Development, 74,1769–1782.

10.

Bowlby

(1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic Books.

11.

Bowlby

(1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation. New York: Basic Books.

12.

Bowlby

(1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss, sadness, and depression. New York: Basic Books.

13.

Brennan

K. A.

Clark

C. L.

Shaver

P. R.

(1998). Self‐report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative approach. In J. A.Simpson , & W. S.Rhodes (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships(pp.46–76). New York: Guildford Press.

14.

Brennan

K. A.

Shaver

P. R.

(1998).Attachment styles and personality disorders: Their connection to each other and parental divorce, parental death, and perception of parental caregiving. Journal of Personality, 66,835–878.

15.

Bretherton

Munholland

K. A.

(1999). Internal working models in attachment relationships: A construct revisited. In J.Cassidy , & P. R.Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications(pp.89–114). New York: Guilford.

16.

Brussoni

M. J.

Jang

K. L.

Livesley

W. J.

MacBeth

T. M.

(2000).Genetic and environmental influences on adult attachment styles. Personal Relationships, 7,283–289.

17.

Carnelley

K. B.

Pietromonaco

P. R.

Jaffe

(1994).Depression, working models of others, and relationship functioning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66,127–140.

18.

Cassidy

Kobak

R. R.

(1988). Avoidance and its relation to other defensive processes. In J.Belsky , & T.Nezworski (Eds.), Clinical implications of attachment(pp.300–323). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

19.

Cassidy

Marvin

R. S.

, with the MacArthur Working Group on Attachment. (1992).Attachment organization in 2½ to 4½ year olds: Coding manual. Unpublished manuscript, University of Virginia.

20.

Cohen

Brown

Smailes

(2001).Child abuse and neglect and the development of mental disorders in the general population. Developmental Psychopathology, 13,981–999.

21.

Crawford

T. N.

Shaver

P. R.

Cohen

Pilkonis

P. A.

Gillath

Kasen

(2006).Self‐reported attachment, interpersonal aggression, and personality disorder in a prospective community sample of adolescents and adults. Journal of Personality Disorders, 20,331–353.

22.

Cross

S. E.

Madson

(1997).Models of the self: Self‐construals and gender. Psychological Bulletin, 122,5–37.

23.

Fonagy

Bateman

A. W.

(2005). Attachment theory and mentalization‐oriented model of borderline personality disorder. In J. M.Oldham , A. E.Skodol , & D. S.Bender (Eds.), Textbook of personality disorders(pp.187–207). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.

24.

Fonagy

Steele

(1991).Maternal representations of attachment during pregnancy predict the organization of infant‐mother attachment at one year of age. Child Development, 62,891–905.

25.

Fraley

R. C.

Waller

N. G.

(1998). Adult attachment patterns: A test of the typological model. In J. A.Simpson , & W. S.Rholes (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships(pp.77–114). New York: Guilford Press.

26.

George

Kaplan

Main

(1985).Adult attachment interview. (Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Berkeley).

27.

Goldsmith

H. H.

Harman

(1994).Temperament and attachment: Individuals and relationships. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3,53–57.

28.

Griffin

Bartholomew

(1994). The metaphysics of measurement: The case of adult attachment. In K.Bartholomew , & D.Perlman (Eds.), Advances in personal relationships(Vol. 5, pp.17–52). London: Jessica Kingsley.

29.

Gunderson

J. G.

(1996).Borderline patient's intolerance of aloneness: Insecure attachments and therapist availability. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153,752–758.

30.

Jang

K. L.

(2005). The behavioral genetics of psychopathology: A clinical guide. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.

31.

Jang

K. L.

Livesley

W. J.

(1999).Why do measures of normal and disordered personality correlate? A study of genetic comorbidity. Journal of Personality Disorders, 13,10–17.

32.

Jang

K. L.

Livesley

W. J.

Vernon

P. A.

(2002).The etiology of personality function: The University of British Columbia Twin Project. Twin Research, 5,342–346.

33.

Johnson

J. G.

Cohen

Smailes

E. M.

Skodol

A. E.

Brown

Oldham

J. M.

(2001).Childhood verbal abuse and risk for personality disorders during adolescence and early adulthood. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 42,16–23.

34.

Kasriel

Eaves

L. L.

(1976).The zygosity of twins: Further evidence on the agreement between diagnoses by blood groups and written questionnaires. Journal of Biosocial Science, 8,263–266.

35.

Kendler

K. S.

Holm

N. V.

(1985).Differential enrollment in twin registries: Its effect on prevalence and concordance rates and estimates of genetic parameters. Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae, 34,125–140.

36.

Livesley

W. J.

(1991).The classifying of personality disorder: Ideal types, prototypes, or dimensions. Journal of Personality Disorders, 3,52–59.

37.

Livesley

W. J.

Jackson

D. N.

(in press). Manual for the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Problems—basic Questionnaire (DAPP‐BQ). London, ON: Research Psychologist Press.

38.

Livesley

W. J.

Jackson

D. N.

Schroeder

M. L.

(1992).Factorial structure of personality disorders in clinical and general population samples. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 101,432–440.

39.

Livesley

W. J.

Jang

K. L.

Vernon

P. A.

(1998).The phenotypic and genetic architecture of traits delineating personality disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 55,941–948.

40.

Lyddon

W. J.

Sherry

(2001).Developmental personality styles: An attachment theory conceptualization of personality disorders. Journal of Counseling and Development, 79,405–414.

41.

McGue

Bouchard

T. J.

(1984).Adjustment of twin data for the effects of age and sex. Behavior Genetics, 14,325–343.

42.

Meyer

Pilkonis

P. A.

(2005). An attachment model of personality disorders. In M. F.Lenzenweger , & J. F.Clarkin (Eds.), Major theories of personality disorder(2nd ed.). (pp.231–281). New York: Guilford Press.

43.

Mickelson

K. D.

Kessler

R. C.

Shaver

P. R.

(1997).Adult attachment in a nationally representative sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73,1092–1106.

44.

Mikulincer

Dolev

Shaver

P. R.

(2004).Attachment‐related strategies during thought‐suppression: Ironic rebounds and vulnerable self‐representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87,940–956.

45.

Mikulincer

Gillath

Shaver

P. R.

(2002).Activation of the attachment system in adulthood: Threat‐related primes increase the accessibility of mental representations of attachment figures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83,881–895.

46.

Mikulincer

Shaver

P. R.

(2003). The attachment behavioral system in adulthood: Activation, psychodynamics, and interpersonal processes. In M. P.Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology(Vol. 35, pp.53–152). New York: Academic Press.

47.

Mikulincer

Shaver

P. R.

Pereg

(2003).Attachment theory and affect regulation: The dynamics, development, and cognitive consequences of attachment‐related strategies. Motivation and Emotion, 2,77–102.

48.

Nakash‐Eisikovits

Dutra

Westen

(2002).Relationship between attachment patterns and personality pathology in adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 41,1111–1123.

49.

Neale

M.C.

(1997). Mx: Statistical modeling(4th ed.). Richmond, VA: Medical College of Virginia, Department of Psychiatry.

50.

Neale

M. C.

Cardon

L. R.

(1992). Methodology for genetic studies of twins and families. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press.

51.

Nichols

R. C.

Bilbro

W. C.

. (1966).The diagnosis of twin zygosity. Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae, 16,265–266.

52.

Nigg

J. T.

Goldsmith

H. H.

(1994).Genetics of personality disorders: Perspectives from personality and psychopathology research. Psychological Bulletin, 115,346–380.

53.

Noftle

E. E.

Shaver

P. R.

(2006).Attachment dimensions and the big five personality traits: Associations and comparative ability to predict relationship quality. Journal of Research in Personality, 40,179–208.

54.

O'Connor

T. G.

Croft

C. M.

(2001).A twin study of attachment in preschool children. Child Development, 72,1501–1511.

55.

Pilkonis

P. A.

(2002).Identification of risk factors in borderline personality disorder: The example of interpersonal functioning. Paper presented at the New Directions in Borderline Personality II Conference, Minneapolis, MN.

56.

Plomin

DeFries

J. C.

(1979).Multivariate behavioral genetic analysis of twin data on scholastic abilities. Behavior Genetics, 9,505–517.

57.

Plomin

DeFries

J. C.

McClearn

G. E.

McGuffin

(2001). Behavioral Genetics(4th ed.). New York: W.H. Freeman.

58.

Schroeder

M. L.

Wormworth

J. A.

Livesley

W. J.

(2002). Dimensions of personality disorder and the five‐factor model of personality. In P. J.Costa, Jr. , & T. A.Widiger (Eds.), Personality disorders and the five‐factor model of personality(2nd ed.). (pp.149–160). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

59.

Shaver

P. R.

Belsky

Brennan

K. A.

(2000).Comparing measures of adult attachment: An examination of interview and self‐report methods. Personal Relationships, 7,25–43.

60.

Shaver

P. R.

Mikulincer

(2002).Attachment‐related psychodynamics. Attachment and Human Development, 4,133–161.

61.

Shaver

P. R.

Mikulincer

(2004). What do self‐report attachment measures assess?In W. S.Rholes , & J. A.Simpson (Eds.), Adult attachment: Theory, research, and clinical implications(pp.17–54). New York: Guilford.

62.

Simpson

J. A.

Rholes

W. S.

Campbell

Tran

Wilson

C. L.

(2003).Adult attachment, the transition to parenthood, and depressive symptoms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84,1172–1187.

63.

van IJzendoorn

M. H.

(1995).Adult attachment representations, parental responsiveness, and infant attachment: A meta‐analysis on the predictive validity of the adult attachment interview. Psychological Bulletin, 117,387–403.

64.

van IJzendoorn

M. H.

Bakersmans‐Kranenburg

M. J.

(1996).Attachment representations in mothers, fathers, adolescents, and clinical groups. Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology, 64,1–21.

65.

Vaughn

B. E.

Waters

(1990).Attachment behavior at home and in the laboratory: Q‐Sort observations and strange situation classifications of one‐year‐olds. Child Development, 61,1965–1973.

66.

Waller

N. G.

Shaver

P. R.

(1994).The importance of nongenetic influences on romantic love styles: A twin‐family study. Psychological Science, 5,268–274.

67.

Waters

(1995).Appendix A: The Attachment Q‐Set (Version 3.0). Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60,234–246.