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We routinely navigate a world that is teeming with stressful social situations, such as job interviews, debating current events with friends and family, or having an argument with an intimate partner. My interdisciplinary, multi-method program of research seeks to understand psychological, cognitive, and physiological processes in relationship contexts. That is, I examine how responses to social stressors (both internal and external to the relationship) influence online physiological and affective responses, and downstream decisions, behaviors, and health outcomes.

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I use multiple theories to generate hypotheses, including the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of challenge and threat, the extended process model of emotion regulation, and adult attachment theory. Then, to answer research questions I rely on multiple methods, including neuroendocrine and cardiovascular physiological measures, behavioral coding, and self-reports. I am also a strong proponent of “immersive” paradigms to study relationship processes. That is, to study how stress unfolds in romantic relationships, couples should be examined when they are actually experiencing stress.

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CORE AREAS OF INTEREST

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I. DYADIC EMOTION REGULATION

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One line of my research examines response-focused emotion regulation processes in dyadic interactions (e.g., Peters & Jamieson, 2016; Peters, Overall, & Jamieson, 2014). This line of work provided the first empirical evidence using motivationally-tuned physiological measures that suppression of negative emotions has negative cardiovascular consequences for both regulators and their interaction partners during social interactions. Moreover, my work has undescroed the importance of individual differences within these contexts. For example, individuals instructed to restrict their emotion regulation strategies (express or suppress) exhibited decreases in testosterone relative to those who freely regulated their emotions. For females, this main effect was moderated by the partner’s trait-level authoritativeness: Females interacting with high-authority/controlling partners exhibited larger decreases in testosterone when instructed to restrict their emotion regulation strategies. This research was the first to document testosterone reactivity in existing romantic relationships and underscored the importance of taking into account social and relational contexts when examining hormonal regulation.

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On-going (and future) projects track the temporal processes associated with dyadic regulation effects using online physiological measurement. For instance, using online physiological measures we can determine how physiological responses in regulators of emotion regulation (Person A) may directly impact physiology of their interaction partners (Person B). After identifying the proper “lag” from Person A-Person B, we can then use this information to map recursive affective processes such that affective displays (as measured via behavioral coding) in Person B “feed-back” to influence subsequent physiological/affective responses in Person A, and so on.

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A unique element of my extant work is the important role of anticipatory physiological threat in affecting social interactions and my current and future work will explore these anticipatory processes in more depth. For example, in collaboration with Dr. Harry Reis, I am working on a study assessing physiological responses during a capitalization context. Research has clearly demonstrated the positive outcomes associated with sharing good news with others – capitalization. Sometimes, though, the news individuals capitalize on can be good for the self (e.g., getting a dream job) but threatening to the relationship (e.g., starting a long-distance relationship). It is easy to imagine how discussing news that is threatening to the relationship (vs. not) would lead to physiological responses associated with threat.

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II. BUFFERING ATTACHMENT INSECURITY

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Across my body of dyadic work mentioned above, one clear theme emerged: individuals exhibited physiological signs of stress or submission even before stressful interactions begin. Yet, a relative dearth of research has explored this phenomenon in the romantic relationship literature, despite recent theories implying that the time before stressful conversations are important, especially for adult attachment processes (Overall & Simpson, 2015). The vast majority of extant attachment research has focused on understanding links between insecure individuals (those high on avoidance and/or anxiety) and their own outcomes, revealing that attachment insecurity is a strong predictor of affective, health, and wellbeing outcomes. However, the ways in which partners anticipate and respond to destructive, insecure responses is also crucial in determining the health and success of a relationship. Toward these ends and across three studies, my dissertation research seeks to examine the “other side” of insecure relationships that has largely been ignored by examining whether individuals with insecure partners are: (1) aware of their partners’ attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance; (2) aware of the maladaptive behaviors associated with these insecurities; (3) find these behaviors and situations to be threatening and stressful, and (4) report engaging in more support behaviors that has been shown in previous research to ameliorate these attachment insecurities. 

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Moving forward, I am going to advance this line work by examining physiological synchrony. Although not readily apparent to couples, it is possible that people “get on the same wavelength” physiologically. It has been theorized that physiological synchrony is a central pathway toward intrapersonal emotional and health outcomes for both individuals in a relationship (Butler, 2011; Butler & Randall, 2013). However, there is no extant work examining synchrony, particularly with motivationally-tuned physiological measures of challenge and threat.