ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2018
When couples' hearts beat together: Synchrony in heart rate variability during conflict predicts heightened inflammation throughout the day.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
36 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
- A Systematic Review of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Romantic Relationships.Family process · 2021Pooled it
- A Dynamic State-Based Framework for Quantifying Triadic Autonomic Synchrony During Group Decision-Making.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- It takes time to synchronize: the emergence of dyadic heart-rate synchrony during music therapy in neurorehabilitation.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Cardiac Impedance Reactivity and Stress Transmission in Community Couples Following Laboratory Interpersonal Trauma-Analog Induction: A Preliminary Study.Couple & family psychology · 2025Article
- An Interpersonal Physiological Pathway Framework Linking Racism and Well-Being in Black American Families.Developmental psychobiology · 2025Review
- Relationship closeness in the context of chronic pain: Daily benefits and challenges for partners.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2025Article
- Adding to the burden: the tendency to resonate with others' stress is linked to higher PTSD symptom severity in individuals with war-related trauma.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Interpersonal Physiological Synchrony During Dyadic Joint Action Is Increased by Task Novelty and Reduced by Social Anxiety.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- From dyadic coping to emotional sharing and multimodal interpersonal synchrony: Protocol for a laboratory experiment.PloS one · 2025Article
- Synchronous Smiles and Hearts: Dyadic Meditations Enhance Closeness and Prosocial Behavior in Virtual and In-Person Settings.Mindfulness · 2025Article
- Behavioral and emotional co-modulation during dog-owner interaction measured by heart rate variability and activity.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Synchrony within, synchrony without: establishing the link between interpersonal behavioural and brain-to-brain synchrony during role-play.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Culture, sex and social context influence brain-to-brain synchrony: an fNIRS hyperscanning study.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- Dyadic and Individual Variation in 24-Hour Heart Rates of Cancer Patients and Their Caregivers.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The neurosociological paradigm of the metaverse.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Relationship satisfaction, feelings of closeness and annoyance, and linkage in electrodermal activity.Emotion (Washington, D.C.) · 2023Article
- Marital negativity's festering wounds: The emotional, immunological, and relational toll of couples' negative communication patterns.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- How aging couples' emotional and physiological associations change across positive, supportive, and conflictual discussions: Roles of capitalization and responsive behaviors.Biological psychology · 2023Article
- Measurement of interpersonal physiological synchrony in dyads: A review of timing parameters used in the literature.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Hostile conflict in marriage can increase risks for disease and mortality. Physiological synchrony between partners-e.g., the linkage between their autonomic fluctuations-appears to capture engagement, or an inability to disengage from an exchange, and thus may amplify the health risks of noxious interactions such as marital conflict. Prior work has not examined the unique health correlates of this physiological signature. To test associations between couples' heart rate variability (HRV) synchrony during conflict and inflammation, 43 married couples engaged in a marital problem discussion while wearing heart monitors and provided four blood samples; they repeated this protocol at a second visit. When couples' moment-to-moment HRV changes tracked more closely together during conflict, they had higher levels of three inflammatory markers (i.e., IL-6, stimulated TNF-α, and sVCAM-1) across the day. Stronger HRV synchrony during conflict also predicted greater negative affect reactivity. Synchrony varied within couples, and was related to situational factors rather than global relationship traits. These data highlight partners' HRV linkage during conflict as a novel social-biological pathway to inflammation-related disease.
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