Supportive hand-holding attenuates pupillary responses to stress in adult couples

PloS One
Tyler C GraffWendy C Birmingham

Abstract

Social relationships, particularly marriage, have been shown to ameliorate the potentially pathogenic impact of stressful events but prior research has been mostly aimed at downstream effects, with less research on real-time reactivity. Pupillometry is an innovative procedure that allows us to see the effects of acute stress in real time. The muscles that control pupil size are linked to the autonomic nervous system, so that when stressed, the pupils dilate; this occurs within 200ms. This quick response allows us to see the immediate effects of acute stress on the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and the real-time effects of social support in buffering stress. The purpose of this study is to examine the dampening effects of received social support on the ANS's pupillary response. Eighty individuals (40 couples) were randomly assigned to either a spousal support (i.e., spouse hand-holding) or non-support condition (i.e., alone) and administered a Stroop task while pupil dilation was measured. The Stroop task elicited a stress reaction in terms of pupil dilation in response to the incongruent task trials. Participants in the support condition showed accelerated habituation to the stress task (p < .001), and less pupil reactivity (...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jun 7, 2020·International Journal of Psychophysiology : Official Journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology·Benjamin T Carter, Steven G Luke
Jul 23, 2021·Journal of American College Health : J of ACH·Wendy C BirminghamMan Hung
Sep 3, 2021·Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews·S G Shamay-Tsoory, N I Eisenberger

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