IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v64y2007i4p765-775.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is attachment style a source of resilience against health inequalities at work?

Author

Listed:
  • Bartley, Mel
  • Head, Jenny
  • Stansfeld, Stephen

Abstract

The argument that 'indirect selection' is a contributory factor to health inequality has included ideas about personal characteristics that may originate in childhood and increase the likelihood of both poor health and disadvantaged social position in adulthood. The concept of protective resilience makes a similar but converse argument: that positive characteristics acquired at one phase of life may enable individuals to withstand later adversity. The increasing richness of data from longitudinal studies now allows us to examine these processes more closely over a longer period of life. In this paper we show that attachment style, a psychological characteristic thought to be associated with the style of parenting encountered during early childhood, may act as a source of resilience in the face of educational disadvantage. Men in mid-life who were not burdened with anxious or avoidant attachment styles seem to have been more likely to overcome the disadvantage of a lower level of educational attainment and progress up the ladder of Civil Service grades in the English Whitehall II study. As it is not strongly related to parents' social class, it can be argued that attachment style has acted as a source of upward social mobility which is also likely to reinforce better health in later life.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartley, Mel & Head, Jenny & Stansfeld, Stephen, 2007. "Is attachment style a source of resilience against health inequalities at work?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 765-775, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:4:p:765-775
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(06)00507-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glendinning, Anthony & Hendry, Leo & Shucksmith, Janet, 1995. "Lifestyle, health and social class in adolescence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 235-248, July.
    2. Maunder, Robert G. & Panzer, Annie & Viljoen, Margaretha & Owen, Johanna & Human, Schalk & Hunter, Jonathan J., 2006. "Physicians' difficulty with emergency department patients is related to patients' attachment style," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 552-562, July.
    3. Sweeting, Helen & West, Patrick, 1995. "Family life and health in adolescence: A role for culture in the health inequalities debate," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 163-175, January.
    4. Glendinning, Anthony & Shucksmith, Janet & Hendry, Leo, 1997. "Family life and smoking in adolescence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 93-101, January.
    5. Bartley, M & Martikainen, P & Shipley, M & Marmot, M, 2004. "Gender differences in the relationship of partner's social class to behavioural risk factors and social support in the Whitehall II study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(9), pages 1925-1936, November.
    6. Glendinning, Anthony & Love, John G. & Hendry, Leo B. & Shucksmith, Janet, 1992. "Adolescence and health inequalities: Extensions to macintyre and west," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 679-687, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ritterman, Miranda Lucia & Fernald, Lia C. & Ozer, Emily J. & Adler, Nancy E. & Gutierrez, Juan Pablo & Syme, S. Leonard, 2009. "Objective and subjective social class gradients for substance use among Mexican adolescents," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 1843-1851, May.
    2. Hasselberg, Marie & Vaez, Marjan & Lucie Laflamme, 2005. "Socioeconomic aspects of the circumstances and consequences of car crashes among young adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 287-295, January.
    3. Grzegorz Bulczak & Alexi Gugushvili & Olga Zelinska, 2022. "How are social origin, destination and mobility linked to physical, mental, and self-rated health? Evidence from the United States," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3555-3585, October.
    4. Michelle Kelly-Irving & Laurence Mabile & Pascale Grosclaude & Thierry Lang & Cyrille Delpierre, 2013. "The embodiment of adverse childhood experiences and cancer development: potential biological mechanisms and pathways across the life course," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 58(1), pages 3-11, February.
    5. Brolin Låftman, Sara & Östberg, Viveca, 2006. "The pros and cons of social relations: An analysis of adolescents' health complaints," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 611-623, August.
    6. Gisselmann, Marit Dahlén, 2006. "The influence of maternal childhood and adulthood social class on the health of the infant," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 1023-1033, August.
    7. Susan P Phillips & Anne Hammarström, 2011. "Relative Health Effects of Education, Socioeconomic Status and Domestic Gender Inequity in Sweden: A Cohort Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(6), pages 1-6, June.
    8. Cleland, Verity & Ball, Kylie & Crawford, David, 2012. "Socioeconomic position and physical activity among women in Melbourne, Australia: Does the use of different socioeconomic indicators matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(10), pages 1578-1583.
    9. Richter, Matthias & Erhart, Michael & Vereecken, Carine A. & Zambon, Alessio & Boyce, William & Gabhainn, Saoirse Nic, 2009. "The role of behavioural factors in explaining socio-economic differences in adolescent health: A multilevel study in 33 countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 396-403, August.
    10. Buchanan, Ann & Ten Brinke, JoAnn, 1998. "Measuring outcomes for children: Early parenting experiences, conflict, maladjustment, and depression in adulthood," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 251-278, March.
    11. Elovainio, Marko & Kivimäki, Mika & Ek, Ellen & Vahtera, Jussi & Honkonen, Teija & Taanila, Anja & Veijola, Juha & Järvelin, Marjo-Riitta, 2007. "The effect of pre-employment factors on job control, job strain and psychological distress: A 31-year longitudinal study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 187-199, July.
    12. Buchanan, Ann & Flouri, Eirini, 2001. "`Recovery' after age 7 from `externalising' behaviour problems: the role of risk and protective clusters," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(12), pages 899-914, December.
    13. Pugno, Maurizio, 2013. "Scitovsky and the income-happiness paradox," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-10.
    14. Skalická, Vera & Kunst, Anton E., 2008. "Effects of spouses' socioeconomic characteristics on mortality among men and women in a Norwegian longitudinal study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(9), pages 2035-2047, May.
    15. Edward Adinkrah & Babak Najand & Angela Young-Brinn, 2023. "Race and Ethnic Differences in the Protective Effect of Parental Educational Attainment on Subsequent Perceived Tobacco Norms among US Youth," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-11, January.
    16. Dustin Brown & Robert Hummer & Mark Hayward, 2014. "The Importance of Spousal Education for the Self-Rated Health of Married Adults in the United States," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(1), pages 127-151, February.
    17. Shareck, Martine & Kestens, Yan & Frohlich, Katherine L., 2014. "Moving beyond the residential neighborhood to explore social inequalities in exposure to area-level disadvantage: Results from the Interdisciplinary Study on Inequalities in Smoking," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 106-114.
    18. Adler, Nancy & Singh-Manoux, Archana & Schwartz, Joseph & Stewart, Judith & Matthews, Karen & Marmot, Michael G., 2008. "Social status and health: A comparison of British civil servants in Whitehall-II with European- and African-Americans in CARDIA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(5), pages 1034-1045, March.
    19. Zang, Emma & Zheng, Hui, 2018. "Does the sex ratio at sexual maturity affect men's later-life mortality risks? Evidence from historical China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 61-69.
    20. Ek, Ellen & Koiranen, Markku & Raatikka, Veli-Pekka & Järvelin, Marjo-Riitta & Taanila, Anja, 2008. "Psychosocial factors as mediators between migration and subjective well-being among young Finnish adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(7), pages 1545-1556, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:4:p:765-775. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.