Physical Intimacy in Older Couples' Everyday Lives: Its Frequency and Links With Affect and Salivary Cortisol.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Physical intimacy is important for communicating affection in romantic relationships. Theoretical and empirical work highlights linkages between physical intimacy, affect, and physiological stress among young and middle-aged adults, but not older adults. We examine physical intimacy and its associations with positive and negative affect and cortisol levels in the daily lives of older couples.

Methods

We applied actor-partner multilevel models to repeated daily-life assessments of physical intimacy (experienced and wished) and affect obtained 6 times a day over 7 consecutive days from 120 older heterosexual German couples (Mage = 71.6, SDage = 5.94). Physiological stress was indexed as total daily cortisol output, the area under the curve with respect to ground (AU

SUBMITTER: Kolodziejczak K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9583184 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature