The Importance of a Few Good Friends: Perceived Network Support Moderates the Association Between Daily Marital Conflict and Diurnal Cortisol

Abstract

This study examined whether the extent to which spouses feel they have available and satisfying support outside their marriage buffers spouses from the potential negative physiological effects of conflict inside their marriage. Newlywed couples (N = 214 spouses) reported occurrences of marital conflict in a daily diary and concurrently provided morning and evening saliva samples for the calculation of daily diurnal cortisol slopes. Extending prior work demonstrating links between marital conflict and acute cortisol responses in laboratory settings, results revealed that spouses exhibited flatter (i.e., less healthy) diurnal cortisol slopes on days of greater marital conflict. Although the quantity of spouses’ support network connections was not associated with physiological responses to conflict, the quality of perceived network support attenuated the association between daily marital conflict and diurnal cortisol slopes. Thus, maintaining a satisfying network of social connections outside a marriage may protect spouses’ well-being during periods of marital difficulty.

Keywords

network support diurnal cortisol marital conflict perceived social support marriage

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adam

E. K.

Kumari

(2009). Assessing salivary cortisol in large-scale, epidemiological research. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34, 1423–1436. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.06.011

Adam

E. K.

Hawkley

L. C.

Kudielka

B. M.

Cacioppo

J. T.

(2006). Day-to-day dynamics of experience—Cortisol associations in a population-based sample of older adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 17058–17063. doi:10.1073/pnas.0605053103

Allison

P. D.

(1990). Change scores as dependent variables in regression analysis. Sociological methodology, 93–114. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/271083

Amato

P. R.

(2009). Alone together: How marriage in America is changing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Barnett

R. C.

Marshall

N. L.

Raudenbush

S. W.

Brennan

(1993). Gender and the relationship between job experiences and psychological distress: A study of dual-earner couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 794–806. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.64.5.794

Baumeister

R. F.

Leary

M. R.

(1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–529. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497

Bolger

Laurenceau

J. P.

(2013). Intensive longitudinal methods: An introduction to diary and experience sampling research. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Brown

J. L.

Sheffield

Leary

M. R.

Robinson

M. E.

(2003). Social support and experimental pain. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, 276–283. doi:10.1097/01.PSY.0000030388.62434.46

Bryant

C. M.

Conger

R. D.

(1999). Marital success and domains of social support in long-term relationships: Does the influence of network members ever end? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 437–450. doi:10.2307/353760

10.

Coan

J. A.

Sbarra

D. A.

(2015). Social baseline theory: The social regulation of risk and effort. Current Opinions in Psychology, 1, 87–91. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2014.12.021

11.

Cohen

Wills

T. A.

(1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98, 310–357. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.310

12.

Coyne

J. C.

DeLongis

(1986). Going beyond social support: The role of social relationships in adaptation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 454–460. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.54.4.454

13.

Curran

P. J.

Bauer

D. J.

(2011). The disaggregation of within-person and between-person effects in longitudinal models of change. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 583–619. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100356.

14.

Cutrona

C. E.

(1996). Social support in couples: Marriage as a resource in times of stress. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

15.

DeLongis

Coyne

J. C.

Dakof

Folkman

Lazarus

R. S.

(1982). Relationship of daily hassles, uplifts, and major life events to health status. Health Psychology, 1, 119–136. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.1.2.119

16.

Dickerson

S. S.

Kemeny

M. E.

(2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 355–391. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.355

17.

Feeney

J. A.

(2009). When love hurts: Understanding hurtful events in couple relationships. In Vangelisti

A. L.

(Ed.), Feeling hurt in close relationships (pp. 313–335). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511770548.016

18.

Felmlee

D. H.

(2001). No couple is an island: A social network perspective on dyadic stability. Social Forces, 79, 1259–1287. doi:10.1353/sof.2001.0039

19.

Finkel

E. J.

Hui

C. M.

Carswell

K. L.

Larson

G. M.

(2014). The suffocation of marriage: Climbing Mount Maslow without enough oxygen. Psychological Inquiry, 25, 1–41. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2014.863723

20.

Fitzsimons

G. M.

Anderson

J. E.

(2012). Interdependent goals and relationship conflict. In Forgas

J. P.

Kruglanski

A. W.

Williams

K. D.

(Eds.), The psychology of social conflict and aggression. (pp. 185–199). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

21.

Funk

J. L.

Rogge

R. D.

(2007). Testing the ruler with item response theory: Increasing precision of measurement for relationship satisfaction with the Couples Satisfaction Index. Journal of Family Psychology, 21, 572–583. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.21.4.572

22.

Hawkley

L. C.

Hughes

M. E.

Waite

L. J.

Masi

C. M.

Thisted

R. A.

Cacioppo

J. T.

(2008). From social structural factors to perceptions of relationship quality and loneliness: The Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 63, S375–S384. doi:10.1093/geronb/63.6.S375.

23.

Heffner

K. L.

Loving

T. J.

Kiecolt-Glaser

J. K.

Himawan

L. K.

Glaser

Malarkey

W. B.

(2006). Older spouses’ cortisol responses to marital conflict: Associations with demand/withdraw communication patterns. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 29, 317–325. doi:10.1007/s10865-006-9058-3

24.

Kelley

H. H.

Thibaut

J. W.

(1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence. New York, NY: Wiley Interscience.

25.

Kiecolt-Glaser

J. K.

Newton

Cacioppo

J. T.

MacCallum

R. C.

Glaser

Malarkey

W. B.

(1996). Marital conflict and endocrine function: Are men really more physiologically affected than women? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 324–332. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.64.2.324

26.

Kirschbaum

Hellhammer

D. H.

(1989). Salivary cortisol in psychobiological research: A overview. Neuropsychobiology, 22, 150–169. doi:10.1159/000118611

27.

Kirschbaum

Kudielka

B. M.

Gaab

Schommer

N. C.

Hellhammer

D. H.

(1999). Impact of gender, menstrual cycle phase, and oral contraceptives on the activity of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis. Psychosomatic Medicine, 61, 154–162.

28.

Klein

R. C. A.

Milardo

R. M.

(2000). The social context of couple conflict: Support and criticism from informal third parties. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 17, 618–637. doi:10.1177/0265407500174008

29.

Kumari

Shipley

Stafford

Kivimaki

(2011). Association of diurnal patterns in salivary cortisol with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: Findings from the Whitehall II study. Endocrine Research, 96, 1478–1485. doi:10.1210/jc.2010-2137

30.

Laurenceau

Bolger

(2005). Using diary methods to study marital and family processes. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 86–97. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.19.1.86

31.

Loving

T. J.

Crockett

(2009). The physiology of feeling hurt. In Vangelisti

(Ed.), Feeling Hurt in Close Relationships (pp. 359–375). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

32.

Malarkey

W. B.

Kiecolt-Glaser

J. K.

Pearl

Glaser

(1994). Hostile behavior during marital conflict affects pituitary and adrenal hormones. Psychosomatic Medicine, 56, 41–51.

33.

McEwen

B. S.

(1998). Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostasis and allostatic load. In McCann

S. M.

Lipton

J. M.

Sternberg

E. M.

Chrousos

G. P.

Gold

P. W.

Smith

C. C.

(Eds.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 840: Neuroimmunomodulation: Molecular aspects, integrative systems, and clinical advances (pp. 33–44). New York: New York Academy of Sciences. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1998.tb09546.x

34.

Murray

S. L.

Holmes

J. G.

Collins

N. L.

(2006). Optimizing assurance: The risk regulation system in relationships. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 641–666. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.641

35.

Putnam

R. D.

(2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

36.

Raudenbush

S. W.

Bryk

A.S

Congdon

(2013). HLM 7.01 for Windows [Computer software]. Skokie, IL: Scientific Software International.

37.

Robles

T. F.

Kiecolt-Glaser

J. K.

(2003). The physiology of marriage: Pathways to health. Physiology & Behavior, 79, 409–416. doi:10.1016/S0031-9384(03)00160-4

38.

Schnall

Harber

K. D.

Stefanucci

J. K.

Proffitt

D. R.

(2008). Social support and the perception of geographical slant. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1246–1255. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.04.011

39.

Sephton

S. E.

Sapolsky

R. M.

Kraemer

H. C.

Spiegel

(2000). Diurnal cortisol rhythm as a predictor of breast cancer survival. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 92, 994–1000. doi:10.1016/S0031-9384(03)00160-4

40.

Sjögren

Leanderson

Kristenson

(2006). Diurnal saliva cortisol levels and relations to psychosocial factors in a population sample of middle-aged Swedish men and women. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 13, 193–200. doi:10.1207/s15327558ijbm1303_2

41.

Slatcher

R. B.

Robles

T. F.

(2012). Preschoolers’ everyday conflict at home and diurnal cortisol patterns. Health Psychology, 31, 834–838. doi:10.1037/a0026774

42.

Snijders

Bosker

(1999). Multilevel analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

43.

Spielmann

S. S.

Joel

MacDonald

Kogan

(2013). Ex appeal: Current relationship quality and emotional attachment to ex-partners. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 175–180. doi:10.1177/1948550612448198

44.

Thoits

P. A.

(2011). Mechanisms linking social ties and support to physical and mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 52, 145–161. doi:10.1177/0022146510395592

45.

Uchino

B. N.

(2004). Social support and physical health: Understanding the health consequences of relationships. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

46.

Uchino

(2013). Understanding the links between social ties and health: On building stronger bridges with relationship science. Journal of Social & Personal Relationships, 30, 155–162. doi:10.1177/0265407512458659

47.

Uchino

B. N.

Cacioppo

J. T.

& Kiecolt-Glaser

J. K.

(1996). The relationship between social support and physiological processes: A review with emphasis on underlying mechanisms and implications for health. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 488–531. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.3.488

48.

VanderVoort

(1999). Quality of social support in mental and physical health. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives On Diverse Psychological Issues, 18, 205–222. doi:10.1007/s12144-999-1029-8

49.

Voss

Markiewicz

Doyle

A. B.

(1999). Friendship, marriage, and self-esteem. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 16, 103–122. doi:10.1177/0265407599161006

50.

Wright

B. L.

Loving

T. J.

(2011). Health implications of conflict in close relationships. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5, 552–562. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00371.x

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.10 MB