Feeling unsupported by your partner can lead to physical stress, as evidenced by higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the body, a study has found.
The research, carried out by psychologists at Binghamton University in New York, found that individuals felt more understood and cared for by a partner when shown positive support during communication—and subsequently, they felt less stressed.
For the study, the researchers examined 191 heterosexual married couples to find out if better communication skills while giving and receiving social support led to lower cortisol levels.
Cortisol is one of the body's stress hormones that works with certain areas of the brain to influence mood, motivation and behavior.
During two 10-minute sessions, the couples discussed personal issues unrelated to their marriage.
The researchers then analyzed their communication for instances of both positive and negative social support given and received. They evaluated how the participants perceived the support they got and gathered samples of saliva to test their cortisol levels.
"We found that wives who received support more negatively (e.g., rejecting help) felt less understood, validated and cared for by a partner, which had a 'stress-amplifying' effect, meaning cortisol increased across the interaction," said Professor of Psychology Richard Mattson in a press release. "Couples felt more understood, validated and cared for when their partners showed positive support skills, and less so when they showed negative communication skills."
The researchers found that people's stress levels prior to the interaction appeared to accurately predict how couples would act and perceive the interactions. In other words, couples may be able to guess how supportive their partner would be, perhaps depending on their past experiences.
Hayley Fivecoat, the lead author of the paper, said in a statement: "Our research more strongly showed how perceptions of support interactions shape our experience. How each partner perceived the interaction was highly associated with how supportive and responsive they believed the partner to be more generally.
"One possibility is that perceptions of how supportive a partner is can build over time and across several interactions; and the more general picture shapes how particular behaviors—good or bad—might be viewed in the moment.
"In either case, those who perceived themselves as having a supportive partner in general tended to have the lowest levels of cortisol at baseline and following the interaction."
The authors added that the tone of what a partner says when providing support may be more important than what they say.
Previous research published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology found that different kinds of interactions–such as verbal communication and touch–have different effects on stress levels.
The full findings of the latest study were published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
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