Abstract
Couples in which one or both partners smoked despite one of them having a heart or lung problem discussed a health-related disagreement before and during a period of laboratory smoking. Immediately afterwards, the partners in these 25 couples used independent joysticks to recall their continuous emotional experience during the interaction while watching themselves on video. A couple-level index of affective synchrony, reflecting correlated moment-to-moment change in the two partners' joystick ratings, tended to increase from baseline to smoking for 9 dual-smoker couples but decrease for 16 single-smoker couples. Results suggest that coregulation of shared emotional experience could be a factor in smoking persistence, particularly when both partners in a couple smoke. Relationship-focused interventions addressing this fit between symptom and system may help smokers achieve stable cessation.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 55-67 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Family Process |
Volume | 48 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2009 |
Keywords
- Couple interaction
- Emotion regulation
- Health-compromised smokers
- Symptom-system fit
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)