Longitudinal relations between constructive and destructive conflict and couples’ sleep.

Abstract

We examined longitudinal relations between interpartner constructive (negotiation) and destructive (psychological and physical aggression) conflict strategies and couples’ sleep over 1 year. Toward explicating processes of effects, we assessed the intervening role of internalizing symptoms in associations between conflict tactics and couples’ sleep. Participants were 135 cohabiting couples (M age = 37 years for women and 39 years for men). The sample included a large representation of couples exposed to economic adversity. Further, 68% were European American and the remainder were primarily African American. At Time 1 (T1), couples reported on their conflict and their mental health (depression, anxiety). At T1 and Time 2, sleep was examined objectively with actigraphs for 7 nights. Three sleep parameters were derived: efficiency, minutes, and latency. Actor–partner interdependence models indicated that husbands’ use of constructive conflict forecasted increases in their own sleep efficiency as well as their own and their wives’ sleep duration over time. Actor and partner effects emerged, and husbands’ and wives’ use of destructive conflict strategies generally predicted worsening of some sleep parameters over time. Several mediation and intervening effects were observed for destructive conflict strategies. Some of these relations reveal that destructive conflict is associated with internalizing symptoms, which in turn are associated with some sleep parameters longitudinally. These findings build on a small, albeit growing, literature linking sleep with marital functioning, and illustrate that consideration of relationship processes including constructive conflict holds promise for gaining a better understanding of factors that influence the sleep of men and women.

Racial disparities in sleep: the role of neighborhood disadvantage

“…For example, in Bagley et al (2016), concerns about community violence were associated with sleep efficiency and long wake episodes in expected directions, yet no effects for the full sample were observed for duration. Furthermore, other recent research has found stress exposure and psychological distress are often more strongly linked to sleep efficiency (eg, wake episodes) than sleep duration (eg, El-Sheikh, Kelly, & Rauer, 2013; El-Sheikh, Koss, Kelly, & Rauer, 2015). Additional studies are needed to further explicate the specific neighborhood-level predictors of sleep efficiency and total sleep duration, as well as the relative magnitude of effects on these different sleep parameters.…”

Within‐Family Relations in Objective Sleep Duration, Quality, and Schedule

“…Couples’ sleep is also longitudinally related. Using the current study sample, El‐Sheikh, Kelly, Koss, and Rauer () found that wives’ sleep minutes and sleep latency (averaged across 7 days of actigraphy data) predicted their husbands’ sleep minutes and latency, respectively, 1 year later.…”

Lovesick: How Couples’ Relationships Influence Health

“…For instance, unhappily married older adults’ sleep problems worsened across four years (Yang et al, 2013). More destructive and less constructive conflict spurred declines in actigraphy-assessed sleep quality and duration over one year (El-Sheikh et al, 2015). Marital discord also disturbs day-to-day sleep: on days when couple interactions were more negative, women experienced worse actigraphy-assessed sleep that night (Hasler and Troxel, 2010).…”

“…Accordingly, depression represents a key pathway from marital conflict and distress to disturbed sleep, a cardinal symptom of depression. In a longitudinal study, depressive symptoms explained conflict-related declines in sleep quality and duration (El-Sheikh et al, 2015). A known risk to partner well-being (Benazon and Coyne, 2000), depression also predicted worse sleep problems for partners one year later (Revenson et al, 2016, El-Sheikh et al, 2015).…”