ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on responsiveness as a crucial factor in individuals’ health and well-being (HWB). It reviews literature on responsiveness—HWB links, and argues that responsiveness should be conceptualized as a lifespan phenomenon because of its unique capacity to longitudinally influence HWB across diverse types of social relationships throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The construct of responsiveness is at the heart of many influential theories in relationship science. A basic function of responsiveness is to down-regulate anxiety and other forms of negativity and to encourage feelings of security, which satisfies fundamental belongingness and attachment needs. The idea that responsiveness influences HWB is a primary feature of attachment theory. Experiencing greater responsiveness in childhood has downstream links with physical health. In adolescence, responsiveness increasingly comes from multiple sources, including caregivers, teachers, coaches, peers, and romantic partners. The chapter concludes with a discussion of exciting recent research that directly investigates responsiveness and HWB across the full lifespan.
