Hormonal synchrony in older couples' everyday life [Research data and script]

DOI

Synchrony in physiology in romantic couples has been suggested to be a result of joint interaction and co-regulation of stress and affect. However, it is subject of debate whether synchrony in endocrine levels - especially in oxytocin - is generally beneficial or if a reciprocal transmission of stress may even be stress-increasing. The aim of this study was to investigate hormonal synchrony in older couples in relation to situational mindfulness, relationship conflict (quarreling), as well as situational resilience and subjective stress levels. A total of N = 26 individuals (i.e., N = 13 couples) aged between 52 and 75 years provided saliva samples and self-report measures 12 times over the course of 2 days (312 measures in total). Superior to randomly scrambled dyads, multilevel models predicted cortisol, alpha-amylase, and oxytocin levels from one partner for the other. Synchrony was higher at times of high levels of quarreling but mitigated in moments of high mindfulness. Moreover, oxytocin synchrony was reduced in couples exerting higher average levels of stress. We interpret this finding as buffering personal factors to protect against the transmission of dyadic stress. To draw implications for clinical interventions to promote these factors and given the preliminary character of the sample and the effects, future studies need to systematically expand this field of research and application.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.11588/DATA/QZ6D8Q
Metadata Access https://heidata.uni-heidelberg.de/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.11588/DATA/QZ6D8Q
Provenance
Creator Hopf, Dora ORCID logo; Aguilar-Raab, Corina; Gödde, Johanna Ulrike; Schneider, Ekaterina; Ditzen, Beate; Eckstein, Monika
Publisher heiDATA
Contributor Hopf, Dora
Publication Year 2025
Funding Reference Heidelberg Pain Consortium SFB1158 ; Heidelberg University Hospital Stiftungen und Preise ; FAZIT foundation PhD stipend
Rights CC BY 4.0; info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
OpenAccess true
Contact Hopf, Dora (Institute of Medical Psychology, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, Heidelberg University Hospital)
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/csv; type/x-r-syntax
Size 272404; 29439
Version 1.0
Discipline Life Sciences; Medicine; Neurosciences; Psychology; Social and Behavioural Sciences