Attachment insecurity and psychological (mal) adjustment in older adults: The longitudinal role of fear of self-compassion

Abstract

Objectives: Insecure attachment has been suggested to precede and perpetuate fear of self-compassion, with a negative impact on mental health. However, this evidence was obtained using general-age samples and cross-sectional designs. Our objective was to, in an older adult sample, analyse longitudinally the indirect effect of fear of self-compassion in the relationship between attachment insecurity and psychological (mal)adjustment, controlling for negative life events. Design: Our study consisted of a repeated-measures design based on three data assessment moments across 6 months. Participants were 147 Portuguese community-resident older adults. Methods: We conducted path analyses to test two models. Model A had attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance as independent variables, fear of self-compassion as mediator and depressive symptoms and quality of life as dependent variables. Model B consisted of a respecified Model A with negative life events added as covariate. Results: Attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance predicted increased depressive symptoms fully through increased fear of self-compassion. Attachment anxiety also predicted decreased quality of life partially through increased fear of self-compassion. These mediation effects remained significant when negative life events were controlled for. Conclusions: In older adults, attachment insecurity underlies the fear of being self-compassionate, which, in turn, leads to increased depressive symptoms and poorer quality of life over time. Fear of self-compassion, therefore, should be taken into consideration when conducting research and/ or intervention in this age-group.