Cardiac Impedance Reactivity and Stress Transmission in Community Couples Following Laboratory Interpersonal...

Stress is a common and unavoidable experience for most individuals. Moreover, stress transmission may occur between individuals, such that one's reactivity to acute stress may also impact their partner. This study examined individual stress reactivity and stress transmission following a stressful-film induction paradigm in the context of one's romantic partner, whereby one partner was randomized to watch a trauma analog. Thirty-three community couples completed self-report assessments and provided physiological data (i.e., preejection period) throughout the study visit. Autoregressive repeated-measures actor-partner interdependence models demonstrated significant actor effects for stressed and nonstressed partners during all study periods. Partner pathways were significantly moderated by the baseline period, providing evidence of mutual influence between partner's preejection period. Actor pathways were significantly moderated by the trauma-analog induction and post trauma-analog induction study periods for the stressed partners but not the nonstressed partners, indicating differences in within-person stress reactions by study period after controlling for the influence of one's partner. While there was a nonsignificant effect for the partner pathways during the poststress induction period, this demonstrates provisional evidence for stress transmission between partners. Results provide evidence of individual stress reactivity and preliminary support for stress transmission between romantic partners following an acute stressor. This highlights the potential importance of considering the outcomes of both partners following acute stress.