Stroking your Beloved One's White Bear: Responsive Touch by the Romantic Partner Buffers the Negative Effect of Thought Suppression on Daily Mood

Debrot, Anik; Schoebi, Dominik; Perrez, Meinrad; Horn, Andrea B.

doi:10.1521/jscp.2014.33.1.75

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(61 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…One could argue that well-regulated partners manage best the challenge of sharing empathically negative affect without suffering too much contagion of negative mood with the risk negative reciprocity. Furthermore, first studies hint to the relevance of considering an interplay of intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation strategies [47]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation and adjustment symptoms in couples: The role of co-brooding and co-reappraisal

2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundAdult emotion regulation is not only occurring within the person but includes strategies that happen in social interactions and that are framed as co-regulating. The current study investigates the role of the interpersonal emotion regulation strategies of co-reappraisal and co-brooding in couples for adjustment disorder symptoms as the disorder will be outlined in the International Classification of Diseases-11 (ICD-11).MethodsCouples registered together in an online questionnaire study reporting whether or not they are adjusting to a major stressor that is psychologically challenging to them. In total, one hundred and forty-six participants (N = 73 male; N = 73 female) reported having experienced a major stressor in the last 12 months and were thus be identified as at risk for adjustment disorder. Those individuals at risk were assessed for adjustment disorder and depressive symptoms; intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation (co-/brooding, co-/reappraisal) were assessed not only in the individual at risk but also in the romantic partner.ResultsRegression-based dyadic analyses revealed that above and beyond intrapersonal emotion regulation, interpersonal co-brooding and for the female participants also co-reappraisal were significantly associated with symptoms of adjustment disorder and depression, standardized betas varied between .24 and .36, suggesting medium effect sizes. An association with the female partner’s tendency to reappraise with fewer symptoms in the male partner at risk for adjustment disorder could also be observed.ConclusionsCo-brooding and co-reappraisal represent emotion regulation strategies that happen in social interaction and seem to play a relevant role in the context of adjustment disorders above and beyond the commonly assessed intrapersonal emotion regulation strategies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40359-016-0159-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation and adjustment symptoms in couples: The role of co-brooding and co-reappraisal

2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In turn, positive emotions foster closeness and strengthen connections in relationships [33], and through this pathway, they can positively influence our physiology [34]. Likewise, and possibly through accumulated experience of positive social connections [35], relationships can buffer against negative emotional experiences and facilitate the downregulation of negative emotions and stress [36,37]. Emotions help to facilitate and coordinate interactions between intimate partners, leading not only to interdependence in emotional experience [38], but also to physiological linkage between partners [39].…”

Section: Affective Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protective processes underlying the links between marital quality and physical health

Slatcher

Schoebi

2017

Current Opinion in Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the links between marital quality and physical health are now well established, the psychological processes through which marriage impacts health remain unclear. Additionally, prior research on the links between marriage and health has focused mainly on how negative aspects of relationships (e.g., conflict, hostility) can be damaging to one's physical health. In this article, we describe the strength and strain model of marital quality and health, which provides a roadmap for studying protective factors underlying marriage-health links. We home in one relationship process-partner responsiveness-and one broad class of psychological mechanisms -affective processes-to illustrate core aspects of the model. Our review suggests that future research will profit from a greater integration of theory from the social psychology of close relationships into studies of relationships and health. Keywords marriage; health; marital quality; relationships; cortisol For many, marriage is the most important adult relationship that they will enter in their lifetimes. A troubled marriage leads to pain and heartache, whereas a happy marriage is one of the strongest predictors of personal well-being [1]. Increasingly, people are asking a lot from their marriages, expecting spouses to satisfy their personal psychological needs (e.g., self-esteem needs) more than any other time in history [2]. It thus may come as no surprise that the quality of peoples' marriages are consistently linked to physical health and longevity. Support for this comes from a recent meta-analysis showing that people in higher quality marriages have better physical health and lower levels of mortality [3]. However, what could not be determined from that meta-analysis was notable. For instance, only a handful of studies separated out effects of positive marital characteristics (e.g., responsiveness, intimacy) from negative characteristics (e.g., conflict, hostility), and almost Please address correspondence to Richard B. Slatcher (rich.slatcher@gmail.com). Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. A roadmap for answering the question of how marital quality impacts physical health may be found in Figure 1. This theoretical framework-the strength and strain model [originally described in 4 but refined here]-has guided our work in this area. In this model, marital strengths-such as partner responsiveness-have salutary effects on health, above and beyond the deleterious effects of marital strains, marked by conflict, hostility, and related processes. Further, this model describes how marital strengths can h...

show abstract

“…Touching someone—as well as being touched by someone—can have a positive and calming effect. People who are touched more often by their partner also report better psychological well-being ( Debrot et al, 2013 ; Debrot et al, 2014 ). From nursing care it is known that human touch can promote physical, emotional, social and spiritual comfort ( Chang, 2001 ; Whitcher & Fisher, 1979 ; see also Field, 2010 ), for instance by effectively reducing worries ( Whitcher & Fisher, 1979 ), anxiety and pain ( Anderson, 2001 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of mediated social touch on affective experiences and trust

Erk¹,

Toet

Erp

2015

PeerJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated whether communication via mediated hand pressure during a remotely shared experience (watching an amusing video) can (1) enhance recovery from sadness, (2) enhance the affective quality of the experience, and (3) increase trust towards the communication partner. Thereto participants first watched a sad movie clip to elicit sadness, followed by a funny one to stimulate recovery from sadness. While watching the funny clip they signaled a hypothetical fellow participant every time they felt amused. In the experimental condition the participants responded by pressing a hand-held two-way mediated touch device (a Frebble), which also provided haptic feedback via simulated hand squeezes. In the control condition they responded by pressing a button and they received abstract visual feedback. Objective (heart rate, galvanic skin conductance, number and duration of joystick or Frebble presses) and subjective (questionnaires) data were collected to assess the emotional reactions of the participants. The subjective measurements confirmed that the sad movie successfully induced sadness while the funny movie indeed evoked more positive feelings. Although their ranking agreed with the subjective measurements, the physiological measurements confirmed this conclusion only for the funny movie. The results show that recovery from movie induced sadness, the affective experience of the amusing movie, and trust towards the communication partner did not differ between both experimental conditions. Hence, feedback via mediated hand touching did not enhance either of these factors compared to visual feedback. Further analysis of the data showed that participants scoring low on Extraversion (i.e., persons that are more introvert) or low on Touch Receptivity (i.e., persons who do not like to be touched by others) felt better understood by their communication partner when receiving mediated touch feedback instead of visual feedback, while the opposite was found for participants scoring high on these factors. The implications of these results for further research are discussed, and some suggestions for follow-up experiments are presented.

show abstract

Stroking your Beloved One's White Bear: Responsive Touch by the Romantic Partner Buffers the Negative Effect of Thought Suppression on Daily Mood

Cited by 28 publications

References 48 publications

Intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation and adjustment symptoms in couples: The role of co-brooding and co-reappraisal

Intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation and adjustment symptoms in couples: The role of co-brooding and co-reappraisal

Protective processes underlying the links between marital quality and physical health

Effects of mediated social touch on affective experiences and trust

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About