I do…do you? Dependence and biological sex moderate daters' cortisol responses when accommodating a partner's thoughts about marriage

Abstract

We examined how daters’ levels of relationship dependence interact with men’s and women’s degree of accommodation during a likelihood of marriage discussion to predict cortisol levels at the conclusion of the discussion. Upon arriving at the laboratory, couple members were separated and asked to graph their perceived likelihood of one day marrying each other. Couples were reunited and instructed to create a joint graph depicting their agreed-upon chance of marriage. For the majority of couples, negotiating their likelihood of marriage required one or both partners to accommodate each other’s presumed likelihood of marriage. Multilevel analyses revealed a significant Dependence x Accommodation x Sex interaction. For women who increased their likelihood of marriage, feelings of dependence predicted heightened levels of cortisol relative to baseline; we suggest such a response is indicative of eustress. Among men, those who accommodated by decreasing their likelihood of marriage experienced significantly lower levels of cortisol to the extent they were less dependent on their partners. Discussion focuses on why men and women show different physiological reactions in response to seemingly favorable outcomes from a relationship discussion.

Energized by love: Thinking about romantic relationships increases positive affect and blood glucose levels

“…Thus, our research allows for the generalization of prior work on stress responses to relationship stimuli (e.g., Emanuele et al., ; Loving et al., ) to romantic relationships that have lasted beyond the initial stages of falling in love. Our findings are also consistent with a recent study examining established couples transitioning into relationship statuses that imply greater commitment (i.e., discussing the possibility of marriage; see Schoenfeld & Loving, ). However, we did not examine the major relationship transitions involved when falling in love or negotiating a new relationship status as most prior studies have.…”

Individual Differences in the Relationship Transition Context: Links to Physiological Outcomes

“…As expected, dependence, accommodation, and gender interacted to predict daters’ cortisol levels at the conclusion of the joint graphing activity (see Figure ; Schoenfeld & Loving, ). Specifically, women who accommodated by increasing their chance of marriage during the joint graphing task experienced higher cortisol levels to the extent that they were more dependent on their relationships.…”

“…Two key events in the normative progression of relationships—specifically, the early relationship transition of falling in love and the later phase of deciding whether or not to formally commit to one's partner—may be especially useful to consider, as both phases are widely considered to be characterized by emotional vulnerability and have the potential to provoke strong positive or negative emotional reactions (sometimes simultaneously; e.g., Hatfield & Walster, ; cf. Schoenfeld & Loving, ). We detail these two transitions next, as they provide the relationship contexts for several investigations of individual differences and health‐relevant outcomes later in this review.…”

Relationship Trajectories: A Meta-Theoretical Framework and Theoretical Applications

“…The five features just reviewed are useful for conceptualizing trajectories from the perspective of a given individual; that is, how does one person evaluate another person across time? However, dyadic phenomena and models pervade the close relationships literature (e.g., Bolger, Zuckerman, & Kessler, 2000;Felmlee & Greenberg, 1999;Laurenceau, Barrett, & Pietromonaco, 1998;Murray & Holmes, 2009;Oriña, Wood, & Simpson, 2002;Reis & Shaver, 1988;Schoenfeld & Loving, 2013;Simpson & Overall, 2014;Wieselquist, Rusbult, Foster, & Agnew, 1999), so the Relationship Trajectories Framework also needs to represent the way that two individuals evaluate each other over time. Figure 7 illustrates two hypothetical individuals' romantic evaluation trajectories with respect to each other across time.…”