Category: Couples / Close Relationships
Mollie Shin, M.A. (she/her/hers)
Doctoral Student
University of Colorado Denver
Denver, Colorado
Corey Petit, M.A.
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Hannah Williamson, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Associate Professor
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
Mollie Shin, M.A. (she/her/hers)
Doctoral Student
University of Colorado Denver
Denver, Colorado
Alexandra Wojda-Burlij, M.A.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Durham, North Carolina
Corey Petit, M.A.
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Melissa Gates, M.S. (she/her/hers)
Doctoral Student
Binghamton University
SUNY Binghamton
Vestal, New York
Finding a romantic partner is a priority for many people in life, and being part of a satisfying romantic relationship confers a great deal of benefits to individual’s mental and physical health and well-being. However, maintaining a strong relationship is an incredibly difficult task; nearly 50% of first marriages will end in divorce, and other types of relationships, such as cohabiting unions, are even more precarious. Much of this difficulty stems from the fact that relationships face frequent threats from sources both internal and external to the relationship that can degrade the satisfaction and stability of the relationship if they are not handled well. This symposium brings together four talks that examine how couples, experience, respond to, and recover from internal and external relationship threats.
The first two talks focus on external stress as a threat to relationship functioning. The first presenter will describe results from an experimental study that induces stress in one partner and measures physiological responses in both partners via activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Analyses examine the extent to which physiological stress spreads from the stressed partner to the non-stressed partner. The second presenter will present a longitudinal study of the effects of a major stressor, PTSD, among active-duty military service members and their spouses. The extent to which relationship characteristics such as commitment can buffer against the deleterious effects of PTSD symptoms on relationship dissolution is examined.
The second two talks move to focusing on internal relationship threats, by focusing on situations in which partners discuss a problem or area of disagreement. The third presenter explores the extent to which this type of interaction evokes a maladaptive jealousy response in partners who perceive themselves to have low relationship power. The fourth presenter examines how each partners’ emotional arousal trajectories during this type of interaction differs based on levels of intimate partner violence present in the relationship.
All four studies are characterized by strong research designs, including use of video-taped observations of behavior, experimental manipulation of stress, physiological measures of arousal, and longitudinal outcome data. Additionally, the samples comprise diverse couples including military couples, distressed community couples, and young adult couples, allowing us to consider these contextual differences and to more broadly generalize our discussion. Taken together, this set of talks will extend our understanding of couple relationship functioning in the face of internal and external threats to the relationship.
The discussant, an accomplished scholar who is well-versed in the determinants of relationship functioning and outcomes will provide insight into the clinical and research implications of these findings as well as comment on how findings inform future directions for basic and applied studies of couple functioning.
Presenter: Mollie E. Shin, PhD – University of Colorado Denver
Co-author: Elizabeth Allen, Ph.D. – University of Colorado Denver
Co-author: Kayla Knopp, Ph.D. – VA San Diego Health Care System
Co-author: Howard Markman, PhD – University of Denver
Co-author: Scott Stanley, Ph.D. – University of Denver
Presenter: Alexandra K. Wojda-Burlij, M.A. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-author: Donald Baucom, Ph.D. – UNC Chapel Hill
Co-author: Danielle M. Weber, M.A. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-author: Andrew Christensen, Ph.D. – University of California Los Angeles
Presenter: Corey Petit, M.A. – University of Virginia
Co-author: meghan costello, M.A. – University of Virginia
Co-author: Gabrielle Hunt, PhD – University of Virginia
Co-author: Jessica Kansky, Ph.D. – Ralph H Johnson VA Medical Center
Co-author: Joseph Allen, Ph.D. – University of Virginia
Presenter: Melissa Gates, PhD – Binghamton University
Co-author: Melissa Gates, PhD – Binghamton University
Co-author: Eileen Barden, MS – Binghamton University (SUNY)
Co-author: Christina Balderrama-Durbin, Ph.D. – Binghamton University