ArticleHealth psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association2015
Longitudinal changes in spouses' HPA responses: Convergence in cortisol patterns during the early years of marriage.
Article in Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Physiological attunement and flourishing: understanding the influence of relationships on health.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Do Parental Hormone Levels Synchronize During the Prenatal and Postpartum Periods? A Systematic Review.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2024Pooled it
- Securely stressed: association between attachment and empathic stress in romantic couples.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Spousal bereavement enhances proinflammatory cytokine production to acute, psychological stress.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Cohabitation as a determinant of adaptive and innate immune cell profiles: Findings from the Health and Retirement Study.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2023Article
- Prenatal mother-father cortisol linkage predicts infant executive functions at 24 months.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Article
- A longitudinal application of the Actor Partner Interdependence Model extended Mediations to the health effects of dyadic support.PloS one · 2021Article
- Daily parent-adolescent cortisol associations: Unpacking the direction of effects.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2020Article
- Moving in Sync: Hourly Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior are Synchronized in Couples.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2020Article
- Quantifying Interpersonal Dynamics for Studying Socio-Emotional Processes and Adverse Health Behaviors.Psychosomatic medicine · 2019Article
- Adult attachment and physical health.Current opinion in psychology · 2019Review
- Marriage, divorce, and the immune system.The American psychologist · 2018Review
- Childhood family adversity and adult cortisol response: The role of observed marital conflict behavior.Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43) · 2018Article
- Interpersonal mechanisms linking close relationships to health.The American psychologist · 2017Article
- Cortisol covariation within parents of young children: Moderation by relationship aggression.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveDrawing on theories of bidirectional influence between relationship partners (Butler, 2011; Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003), the authors applied dyadic analytic methods to test convergence in cortisol patterns over time in newlywed couples.
methodPrevious studies of bidirectional influence in couples' cortisol levels (Liu, Rovine, Klein, & Almeida, 2013; Papp, Pendry, Simon, & Adam, 2013; Saxbe & Repetti, 2010) found significant covariation in couples' daily cortisol levels over several days, but no studies have tested whether cortisol response similarity increases over time using a longitudinal design. In the present study, 183 opposite sex couples (366 participants) engaged in a conflict discussion in a laboratory visit about 6 months after their marriage, and again about 2 years into the marriage. At each visit, spouses provided saliva samples that indexed cortisol levels before, during, and after the discussion. This multimeasure procedure enabled modeling of spouses' cortisol trajectories around the conflict discussion.
resultsFindings showed significant convergence in couples' cortisol trajectories across the early years of marriage; couples showed significantly greater similarity in cortisol trajectories around the conflict discussion as their relationship matured. Cohabitation length predicted stronger convergence in cortisol slopes prior to the conflict discussion. Couples' relationship dissatisfaction was associated with a greater degree of convergence in spouses' acute cortisol levels during the conflict discussion.
conclusionsFindings suggest that spouses increasingly shape each other's cortisol responses as their relationship matures. Findings also indicated that increased similarity in acute cortisol levels during conflict may be associated with poorer relationship functioning.
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