Evidence for the stress-buffering effects of social support in intimate relationships raises important questions about whether partner support promotes recovery in physiological systems implicated in physical health. The present study examined (a) whether observed dyadic coping enhances cortisol stress recovery and (b) whether a stressed partner's self-reported attachment anxiety and avoidance moderate these effects. Stress was experimentally induced by asking either the man or woman in 123 heterosexual couples to participate in a standardized public speaking task. Stressed individuals recovered faster from stress the more positive dyadic coping they received from the partner, with women high in attachment anxiety benefiting less from these behaviors. Attachment avoidance did not moderate these associations. This study highlights the value of examining the interplay between partners' behaviors and attachment orientations in order to understand the impact of stress on close relationships and partners' health.
Although evolutionary and social-structural models predict that women will be more supportive than men in relationships, behavioral studies fail to confirm this difference. We predicted instead that gender differences in support will be moderated by stress, and that men will provide lower-quality support primarily when their stress is high. We predicted further that the detrimental effects of stress on men's support will be more evident when men are responding to women's emotionally toned expressions of stress than when men are responding to women's affectively neutral expressions of stress. Stressed and unstressed men and women were observed providing support to a stressed relationship partner. While unstressed, men and women generally provided similar support to the stressed partner. While stressed, men provided lower-quality support than did comparably stressed women, but only in response to emotionally toned expressions of stress. Thus, gender differences in support may arise because women are better able than men to regulate other people's emotional distress while managing stresses of their own.
Spontaneous nonverbal expressions of intimacy appear to regulate the effects of acute environmental demands on established biological indices of stress response.
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