Several decades of research have demonstrated that marital relationships have a powerful influence on physical health. However, surprisingly little is known about how marriage affects health—both in terms of psychological processes and biological ones. We investigated the associations between perceived partner responsiveness—the extent to which people feel understood, cared for and appreciated by their romantic partner—and diurnal cortisol over a 10-year period in a large sample of married and cohabitating couples in the U.S. Partner responsiveness predicted higher wakeup cortisol values and steeper (“healthier”) cortisol slopes at the 10-year follow-up, and these associations remained strong after controlling for demographic factors, depressive symptoms, agreeableness, and other positive and negative relationship factors. Further, declines in negative affect over the 10-year period mediated the prospective association between responsiveness and cortisol slope. These findings suggest that diurnal cortisol may be a key biological pathway through which social relationships impact long-term health.

Despite the abundant literature on attachment processes and the development of a secure or insecure attachment orientation during childhood, it is still unclear whether adult attachment style can be changed through systematic interventions, and if so how the change process works. One way to learn more about such change is to create it, on a small scale, in the laboratory. It is already known that a person's sense of security can be momentarily changed in the laboratory (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007a). But there is clearly a difference between very short-term and longer-term change. According to Bowlby (1982), the development of an attachment orientation in childhood is based on many encounters and interactions with caregivers, which gradually create a mental network of relatively stable expectations and concerns. Thus, it may take many episodes of security priming in a laboratory to begin to affect a young adult's attachment style in a lasting way. Here, we explore this possibility, review existing evidence from our own and other researchers' laboratories, and discuss directions for future research. Long-Term Security PrimingLong-Term Security Priming 1663 research projects and has co-authored numerous articles and chapters on attachment processes and their underlying mechanisms. His work focuses on human pair-bonding behavior and the effects of personality on cognition and behavior. In recent years, he has expanded this work by using neuroimaging, gene mapping, and virtual reality techniques. He has explored associations between attachment style (or relationship style) and cognitive performance, sexual motivation and behavior, mating strategies, and caregiving behavior. Applications. He has published over 200 scholarly articles and book chapters. His research focuses on attachment, human motivation and emotion, close relationships, personality development, and the effects of meditation on behavior and the brain. He is a member of the editorial boards of Attachment and Human Development, Personal Relationships, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Emotion.

The association between the quality of people’s close relationships and their physical health is well-established. But from a psychological perspective, how do close relationships impact physical health? This article summarizes recent work seeking to identify the relationship processes, psychological mediators and moderators of the links between close relationships and health, with an emphasis on studies of married and cohabitating couples. We begin with a brief review of a recent meta-analysis of the links between marital quality and health. We then describe our strength and strain model of marriage and health, homing in on one process—partner responsiveness—and one moderator—adult attachment style—to illustrate ways in which basic relationship science can inform our understanding of how relationships impact physical health. We conclude with a brief discussion of promising directions in the study of close relationships and health.

Motivated by attachment theory and recent conceptualizations of perceived partner responsiveness as a core feature of close relationships, the present study examined change in hedonic and eudaimonic well-being over a decade in a sample of more than 2,000 married adults across the United States. Longitudinal analyses revealed that perceived partner responsiveness— the extent to which individuals believe that their partner cares for, appreciates, and understands them—predicted increases in eudaimonic well-being a decade later. These results remained after controlling for initial hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, age, gender, extraversion, neuroticism, and perceived responsiveness of family and friends. Affective reactivity, measured via an 8-day diary protocol in a subset of the sample, partially mediated this longitudinal association. After controlling for covariates, perceived partner responsiveness did not prospectively predict hedonic well-being. These findings are the first to document the long-term benefits of perceived partner responsiveness on eudaimonic well-being.

A growing literature shows that even the symbolic presence of an attachment figure facilitates the regulation of negative affect triggered by external stressors. Yet, in daily life, pernicious stressors are often internally generated--recalling an upsetting experience reliably increases negative affect, rumination, and susceptibility to physical and psychological health problems. The present research provides the first systematic examination of whether activating the mental representation of an attachment figure enhances the regulation of affect triggered by thinking about upsetting memories. Using 2 different techniques for priming attachment figure representations and 2 types of negative affect measures (explicit and implicit), activating the mental representation of an attachment figure (vs. an acquaintance or stranger) after recalling an upsetting memory enhanced recovery--eliminating the negative effects of the memory recall (Studies 1-3). In contrast, activating the mental representation of an attachment figure before recalling an upsetting memory had no such effect (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, activating the mental representation of an attachment figure after thinking about upsetting memories reduced negative thinking in a stream of consciousness task, and the magnitude of the attachment-induced affective recovery effects as assessed with explicit affect measures predicted mental and physical health in daily life (Study 3). Finally, a meta-analysis of the 3 studies (Study 4) showed that the regulatory benefits conferred by the mental representation of an attachment figure were weaker for individuals high on attachment avoidance. The implications of these findings for attachment, emotion regulation, and mental and physical health are discussed.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether perceived partner responsiveness (PPR) moderates the association between received partner emotional support (RPES) and all-cause mortality in a national U.S. sample. Method: Data were from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, a national probability survey of health and aging. Participants included respondents who were married or cohabiting with a romantic partner. Results: Hierarchical logistic regression analyses indicated that after adjusting for demographics, physical health status, health behaviors, psychological symptoms, and personality traits, high RPES was associated with increased mortality risk among participants who reported low PPR, but it was unrelated to mortality risk among participants who reported high PPR. Conclusions: This study is the first to document that perceived partner responsiveness moderates the association between received partner emotional support and mortality risk, thus contributing to the literature on the contextual factors altering the effects of received support on health outcomes.

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The present study investigated whether perceived partner responsiveness—the extent to which individuals feel cared for, understood, and validated by their partner—predicted subjective sleep problems and objective (actigraph-based) sleep efficiency through lower anxiety and depression symptoms. A life span sample of 698 married or cohabiting adults (35–86 years old) completed measures of perceived partner responsiveness and subjective sleep problems. A subset of the sample ( N = 219) completed a weeklong sleep study where actigraph-based measures of sleep efficiency were obtained. Perceived partner responsiveness predicted lower self-reported global sleep problems through lower anxiety and depression and greater actigraph-assessed sleep efficiency through lower anxiety. All indirect associations held after controlling for emotional support provision to the partner, agreeableness, and demographic and health covariates known to affect sleep quality. These findings are among the first to demonstrate how perceived partner responsiveness, a core aspect of romantic relationships, is linked to sleep behavior.