Wives' and husbands' cortisol reactivity to proximal and distal dimensions of couple conflict.

ABSTRACT: Poor marital quality has been linked repeatedly to spouses' health problems, with alterations to physiological stress response systems, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, as one putative mechanism. This study assessed wives' and husbands' HPA axis (i.e., cortisol) reactivity to marital criticism during laboratory-based conflict discussions, in the context of marital aggression experienced during the previous year. Ninety-five couples provided one saliva sample prior to-and three samples following-a triadic family conflict discussion involving their teenage child. Marital criticism during the conflict discussion was related to heightened HPA reactivity for husbands only. For wives, an interaction emerged between criticism during the conflict and previous-year mari

SUBMITTER: Rodriguez AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3775283 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature