Health Implications of Conflict in Close Relationships

How Families Make Their Way Into Your Heart: Exploring the Associations Between Daily Experiences Involving Family Members and Cardiovascular Health

BACKGROUND

Cardiovascular disease is a critical public health issue and a growing body of literature on relationships and health point to individuals' interactions and involvement with family members as significant correlates of cardiovascular outcomes. However, less is known about the implications of daily encounters with family members on cardiovascular health outcomes and how the associations vary across adulthood.

PURPOSE

The aims of this study were to examine the associations of positive and negative daily experiences with family members with comprehensive measures of cardiovascular health and to further explore how age moderates these associations.

METHODS

This study used data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) II and MIDUS Refresher. The sample was composed of respondents who participated in two subprojects of MIDUS, namely the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE) and Biomarker Project (N = 1,312). Indices of cardiovascular health included inflammatory markers, autonomic functioning, and Life's Simple 7 scores.

RESULTS

Results showed that the associations between daily family experiences and cardiovascular outcomes differed by age. Having more daily negative experiences with family members was associated with better cardiovascular health outcomes among young adults and worse cardiovascular outcomes among older adults. Having more daily positive experiences was also associated with lower heart rate variability for older adults.

CONCLUSIONS

Results revealed that contrary to the general assumption that negative experiences have health-damaging effects, frequent involvement with family members in daily life, even negative ones, may be indicative of active engagement in life that could be health promoting for younger adults.

The health consequences of stress in couples: A review and new integrated Dyadic Biobehavioral Stress Model

Despite marriage's health benefits, all couples experience stress that can increase morbidity and mortality risks. Marital stress can alter endocrine, cardiovascular, and immune function-key pathways from troubled relationships to poor health. This review discusses how partners "get under each other's skin" to influence psychological, behavioral, and biological health. Then, I offer a comprehensive Dyadic Biobehavioral Stress Model to build on this foundational work and inspire transdisciplinary research integrating psychoneuroimmunological and relational lenses. This conceptual and empirically driven model provides promising new directions to investigate mechanisms linking individuals' relationships behaviors to their own and their partners' health, with particular emphasis on biological pathways. These mechanisms may impact each partner's physical health outcomes, such as disease development, illness severity, and accelerated biological aging. Risk and protective factors across developmental stages and diverse contexts are also discussed to help explain how, and under what conditions, partners influence each other's health. Research applying this model can push the boundaries of our current understanding on dyadic stress its far-reaching health effects on self-report and biological markers across the lifespan.

Should Strengthening Bonds Be a Public Health Priority?

Abstract. Background: Previous research demonstrates the importance of close relationships on our physical health. However, to what extent the quality of our social relationships impacts our health, relative to other important health behaviors (e.g., smoking, drinking alcohol, and physical exercise), is less clear. Aims: Our goal was to use a nationally representative sample of Canadian adults to assess the relative importance of the quality of one’s social relationships (close emotional bonds and negative social interactions), relative to important health behaviors on physical health outcomes previously linked to social relationship quality. Method: Data ( N = 25,113) came from the Canadian Community Health Survey in 2012, a cross-sectional survey administered by Statistics Canada (2013) . The predictor variables were the presence of close emotional bonds, negative social relationships, type of smoker, type of drinker, and weekly hours of physical activity. The outcome variables were a current or previous diagnosis of high blood pressure, cancer, stroke, reports of current illness or injury, pain, and self-reported physical health. Results: Using regressions, we found that negative social interactions were more important than other health behaviors in relation to current injury/illness and pain. Physical activity was most strongly related to self-rated health, followed by negative social interactions and then close emotional bonds. Alcohol consumption was more related to the prevalence of stroke. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that negative social interactions may be more related to acute or minor physical health conditions, but social relationships may not be more strongly related to more chronic, life-threatening health conditions than other health behaviors.

Cardiovascular reactivity to acute stress: Attachment styles and invisible stranger support

While the benefits of social support for physiological health are well established, the underlying pathways by which support can influence cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) are still being elucidated. In the present study, we adapted an attachment framework to further explore the support-CVR link. Specifically, we experimentally tested the effect of attachment and social support on CVR by manipulating the provision of invisible support from a stranger, across individuals with secure, anxious and avoidant attachment styles. Employing a 3 × 2 design, a sample of young adults (N = 138) from across each of the three attachment styles were randomly assigned to either an invisible support (from a stranger), or no support, condition. All participants were subject to an acute standardised stress testing protocol where cardiovascular indices were monitored throughout. Results from a factorial ANOVA showed no significant interaction between support and attachment on any cardiovascular reactivity parameter (SBP, DBP, HR) or any main effect of attachment or support. These findings suggest that, in this case, social support was not effective in buffering the effects of stress across various attachment styles. The benefits of incorporating a developmental perspective to the study of social support and health are discussed.

Cortisol slopes and conflict: A spouse's perceived stress matters

BACKGROUND

Perceived stress can lead to dysregulated cortisol patterns, including blunted peaks and flatter slopes, which are associated with increased morbidity and mortality risks. Couples' interdependence provides a prime opportunity for partners' stress to disrupt a healthy cortisol pattern. This study examined how individuals' own perceived stress and their partners' perceived stress shape cortisol levels and slopes across the day, as well as how positive and negative behaviors during conflict discussions impact associations between stress and cortisol.

METHODS

Both partners of a married couple (n = 43 couples, 86 individuals) completed a full day in-person visit. Each partner completed the Perceived Stress Scale, and all couples engaged in a 20-min marital problem discussion which was recorded and later coded for positive and negative behaviors using the Rapid Marital Interaction Coding System (RMICS). Partners also provided five salivary cortisol samples across the day, two samples before the conflict and three after the conflict. The dyadic design and analyses provided a way to account for the interdependent nature of married couples' data, as well as to use the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) to assess the mutual influence of spouses' stress on cortisol.

RESULTS

Individuals with more stressed partners had flatter cortisol slopes than individuals with less stressed partners, who showed steeper and thus healthier declines across the day. Individuals' cortisol levels at the beginning of the day were similar regardless of their partners' perceived stress, but individuals with more stressed partners had higher cortisol levels 30-min, 1 h, and 4 h after the conflict discussion than those with less stressed partners. Couples' behavior during the conflict moderated the relationship between partner perceived stress and average cortisol; when couples used more negative and less positive behaviors, individuals with more stressed partners had higher average cortisol levels than those with less stressed partners.

CONCLUSION

On a day couples experienced conflict, having a partner with higher perceived stress is associated with dysregulated cortisol patterns, including higher levels and flatter slopes, but having a partner with lower perceived stress is linked to steeper and thus healthier cortisol declines. A partner's stress was particularly consequential for one's own cortisol when couples used more negative and fewer positive behaviors during a conflict discussion. This research adds to the growing literature on pathways connecting marital interactions to important biorhythms and health.

For Better or Worse: Facebook Use and Wellbeing Among Community Mental Health Care Clients

Online social networking is ubiquitous, but research regarding its relationship to wellbeing has yielded contradictory results. This study examined the relationship between Facebook use and wellbeing among community mental health service clients. Twenty-six clients from a community mental health service provided access to their Facebook page. Seven aspects of 3674 Facebook posts were coded, and cross-lagged multilevel models were estimated over three periods to establish the relationship between Facebook use and wellbeing over time. Some aspects of Facebook use were related to wellbeing within the same period, although this pattern of relationships did not emerge longitudinally. Although Facebook has the potential to forge social connections for those who are socially isolated, Facebook use was neither helpful nor harmful over time among people with mental health problems. Given the prevalence of social networking, a clearer understanding of its impact on wellbeing is critical for mental health providers.

Hand-in-Hand Combat: Affectionate Touch Promotes Relational Well-Being and Buffers Stress During Conflict

Relational conflict has a considerable impact on relational and personal well-being, but whether that impact is positive or negative depends on how the conflict is managed. Individuals struggle to have constructive conflicts that protect their relationships and avoid excess stress, which can lead to declines in relationship quality over time. The current set of experiments tested whether a brief touch intervention would promote relational well-being and prevent stress during couple conflict discussions. Results indicated that engaging in touch prior to and during conflict was effective to improve couple-members’ conflict behavior and to buffer stress in real (Experiment 1) and imagined (Experiments 2a and 2b) contexts. The results of these experiments suggest that touch may be a simple yet effective intervention for improving couple conflict discussions. In addition, we provide initial evidence that enhanced state security and cognitive interdependence serve as mechanisms underlying these effects.

The Importance of a Few Good Friends: Perceived Network Support Moderates the Association Between Daily Marital Conflict and Diurnal Cortisol

This study examined whether the extent to which spouses feel they have available and satisfying support outside their marriage buffers spouses from the potential negative physiological effects of conflict inside their marriage. Newlywed couples ( N = 214 spouses) reported occurrences of marital conflict in a daily diary and concurrently provided morning and evening saliva samples for the calculation of daily diurnal cortisol slopes. Extending prior work demonstrating links between marital conflict and acute cortisol responses in laboratory settings, results revealed that spouses exhibited flatter (i.e., less healthy) diurnal cortisol slopes on days of greater marital conflict. Although the quantity of spouses’ support network connections was not associated with physiological responses to conflict, the quality of perceived network support attenuated the association between daily marital conflict and diurnal cortisol slopes. Thus, maintaining a satisfying network of social connections outside a marriage may protect spouses’ well-being during periods of marital difficulty.

Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood: A Theoretical Model and Review of the Research

Throughout the life span, individuals engage in affectionate touch with close others. Touch receipt promotes well-being in infancy, but the impacts of touch in adult close relationships have been largely unexplored. In this article, we propose that affectionate touch receipt promotes relational, psychological, and physical well-being in adulthood, and we present a theoretical mechanistic model to explain why affectionate touch may promote these outcomes. The model includes pathways through which touch could affect well-being by reducing stress and by promoting well-being independent of stress. Specifically, two immediate outcomes of affectionate touch receipt—relational-cognitive changes and neurobiological changes—are described as important mechanisms underlying the effects of affectionate touch on well-being. We also review and evaluate the existing research linking affectionate touch to well-being in adulthood and propose an agenda to advance research in this area. This theoretical perspective provides a foundation for future work on touch in adult close relationships.

Running With the Pack: Teen Peer-Relationship Qualities as Predictors of Adult Physical Health

This study assessed qualities of adolescent peer relationships as long-term predictors of physical health quality in adulthood. In an intensive multimethod, multireporter study of a community sample of 171 individuals assessed repeatedly from the ages of 13 to 27 years, physical health quality in adulthood was robustly predicted by independent reports of early-adolescent close-friendship quality and by a pattern of acquiescence to social norms in adolescent peer relationships. Predictions remained after accounting for numerous potential confounds, including prior health problems, concurrent body mass index, anxious and depressive symptoms, personality characteristics, adolescent-era financial adversity, and adolescent-era physical attractiveness. These findings have important implications for understanding the unique intensity of peer relationships in adolescence.

Social Networks in Later Life: Weighing Positive and Negative Effects on Health and Well-Being

Social networks provide a mix of positive and negative experiences. Network members can provide help in times of need and day-to-day companionship, but they can also behave in ways that are inconsiderate, hurtful, or intrusive. Researchers must grapple with these dualities in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of how social network ties affect health and well-being. This article provides an overview of research that has examined the health-related effects of positive and negative aspects of social network involvement. If focuses on later life, a time when risks for declining health and for the loss or disruption of social relationships increase.