The moderating role of attachment in the association between physiological synchrony in married couples and supportive behavior in the transition to parenthood.

Despite supportive behaviors playing a central role in intimate relationships, the extent to which physiological and psychological factors are involved in the quality of the observed spousal support, remains largely unknown. From a physiological stance, cardiac synchrony has been identified as an important component involved in dyadic interpersonal interactions. This study aims to examine whether individual differences in attachment determine, at least to some extent, whether cardiac synchrony enhances or impedes the quality of the observed spousal support. Specifically, this study examines whether attachment style moderates the biobehavioral link between positive cardiac synchrony and observed spousal support. A total of 58 couples expecting their first child participated in a supportive interaction while their cardiovascular responses were recorded, and the quality of their caregiving behaviors was coded. Results indicated that couples' cardiovascular dynamics were synchronized during the supportive interaction. Furthermore, attachment moderated the association between positive cardiac synchrony and the behavioral manifestation of support, such that cardiac synchrony was negatively associated with the quality of support when offered by caregivers with higher scores of attachment anxiety. Our findings show that for those caregivers who have higher levels of anxious attachment-being synchronized with their care seeking spouses is associated with difficulties in providing effective support. We discuss these findings in the context of the emotion regulation difficulties characteristic of anxious attachment patterns. These findings suggest that future work could benefit from performing comprehensive studies that consider physiological, behavioral, and psychological constructs simultaneously.

Interpersonal physiological regulation during couple support interactions: Examining the role of respiratory sinus arrhythmia and emotional support.

In times of need, people seek comfort and support from close others. Support provision is an integral component of attachment relationships, one that is linked with physical and psychological well-being. Successful support provision is believed to be grounded in transactions of sensitive, caring behavior between caregivers and support seekers and to serve a profound regulatory function. However, physiological processes underlying support transactions have not been previously studied. We assessed autonomic vagal regulation and coded spontaneous emotional support behaviors in N = 100 heterosexual couples involved in a support interaction. We focused on cardiac vagal activation, operationalized as the increase in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) from baseline to interaction, as an indicator of regulatory efforts. Analyses revealed a negative association between caregivers' and support seekers' regulatory efforts, which was mediated by emotional support behaviors. We found that caregivers with greater increases in RSA from baseline to interaction provided more emotional support to their partners. Such emotional support was associated with smaller increases in support seekers' RSA and with support seekers' perceptions of their partners as being more sensitive to their needs. Finally, these links were only significant among dyads in which caregivers reported lower levels of attachment anxiety. We interpret these results in the framework of interpersonal regulatory processes, suggesting that provision of support may impose regulatory demands on the side of the caregivers, which in turn could result in attenuated regulatory efforts and positive partner perceptions for the support seekers.