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

Abstract

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.

Effects of couples positive massage programme on wellbeing, perceived stress and coping, and relation satisfaction

“…Interestingly, stress-buffering effects of touch have previously been demonstrated among couples (Ditzen et al, 2007;Jakubiak & Feeney, 2017) during periods of learning (Holt-Lunstad, Birmingham, & Light, 2008), conflict (Jakubiak & Feeney, 2019) and stressful times (Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006). It is proposed that touch provides psychological benefit between intimate partners by strengthening bonds that consequently enhance affect and wellbeing (Debrot, Schoebi, Perrez, & Horn, 2013).…”

Improvement of Conflict Handling: Hand-Holding During and After Conflict Discussions Affects Heart Rate, Mood, and Observed Communication Behavior in Romantic Partners

“…Therefore, we studied effects of hand-holding during and after conflict discussions, which is potentially important for clinical practice. Only one of the studies discussed above examined the effects of hand-holding during conflict discussions (Jakubiak & Feeney, 2019). This study was conducted simultaneously with the current study and largely paralleled our ideas, although our study differed in several important respects.…”

“…Enhancement of positive affect and reduction of negative affect is therefore important in making conflict handling more constructive. Touch was found to be associated with positive affect in an observational study (Debrot, Schoebi, Perrez, & Horn, 2013), whereas experimental studies found reductions of self-reported and observed stress by touch after a laboratory task (Robinson, Hoplock, & Cameron, 2015) and, importantly, during a conflict discussion between partners (Jakubiak & Feeney, 2019).…”

“…Prevention or interruption of such escalation is important. Touch was found to be associated with easier conflict resolution in an observational study (Gulledge, Gulledge, & Stahmann 2003), whereas one experimental study demonstrated that touch enhanced communication behavior during a conflict discussion (Jakubiak & Feeney, 2019). Touch may exert its positive effect on communication through several pathways.…”

Positive Massage for Couples’ Wellbeing and Relationships: The Bridge between Positive Psychology and Massage

“…Notably, tactile intervention in PAIs is particularly lacking, and as far as current authors are aware, no literature seems to be available on this in the field of positive psychology. This is despite the positive effect of touch in bonding and in delivering associated relational benefits [18] [19]. Indeed, among romantic couples, physical affection shown by touch has been demonstrated to be associated with overall relationship satisfaction [20] and higher level of wellbeing [21] [22].…”