new study<\/a> published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked at coexperienced positive emotions and cortisol secretion in the daily lives of older couples.<\/p>\nPrevious research has shown that positive emotions, such as happiness, joy, love, and excitement, are good for health. They\u2019ve even been linked to longer lives. However, most of this research considers people\u2019s emotions as if they happen in isolation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn real life, though,\u201d study author Tomiko Yoneda explained to\u00a0us, \u201cour most powerful positive emotions often happen when we\u2019re connecting with someone else. In this study, we wanted to understand how often older couples share positive emotional moments in their everyday lives, and whether these shared moments affect the body in meaningful ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Positivity resonance has been studied in the lab, Yoneda explained. Couples come in and researchers ask them to talk about something positive, neutral, or a previous disagreement. The couple is recorded and hooked up to electrodes to measure physiology during those conversations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Results based on this paradigm show that couples with more positivity resonance during those conversations (more co-experienced positive emotions and more indicators of being physically responsive and in sync including physiological synchrony) have better health outcomes over a decade later, in addition to increased longevity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fascinating,\u201d Yoneda told us. \u201cI think we all need some insight into how we might reduce our cortisol these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Older adult relationship partners who were living together were recruited and asked to complete short surveys five to seven days for seven days in a row. At each survey, they were asked whether they were with their relationship partner and to rate their positive emotions (happy, relaxed, and interested) on a scale from 0-100. The research team computationally defined coexperienced positive emotions as the occasions when both participants rated their positive emotions as higher than their own average. They also completed saliva samples at each survey to measure their cortisol.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that relative to the occasions when relationship partners were together, both reported higher positive emotions compared to their own personal average at approximately 38% of the occasions. Further, on those occasions when they had coexperienced positive emotions, they had lower cortisol.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese results are highly consistent with positivity resonance theory,\u201d Yoneda told us. \u201cWhat was a bit surprising was that the effect was not moderated by relationship satisfaction. This means that coexperienced positive emotions are related to lower cortisol, regardless of how satisfied people were in their relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yoneda is excited that even small moments of shared joy or connection may help support better physical health as we age.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFurther, even if a couple isn\u2019t feeling especially happy with their relationship overall, sharing positive emotions still seems to have a calming effect on the body.\u201d<\/p>\n
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