Physiological coregulation during social support discussions.

Close relationships are proposed to function as dynamic regulatory systems, whereby partners jointly regulate each other's emotions and physiology to maintain an equilibrium level of responding--a process known as coregulation. Little is known, however, regarding when coregulation emerges. We hypothesized that because social support interactions involve explicit interpersonal emotion regulation attempts, they might be especially likely to engender stabilizing patterns of coregulation that entrain partners' responses toward an equilibrium level.

Merged minds: Generalized shared reality in dyadic relationships.

Many everyday conversations, whether between close partners or strangers interacting for the first time, are about the world external to their relationship, such as music, food, or current events. Yet, the focus of most research on interpersonal relationships to date has been on the ways in which partners perceive each other and their relationship. We propose that one critical aspect of interpersonal interactions is developing a sense of dyadic, -the subjective experience of sharing a set of inner states (e.

Social Support and Antibody Responses to Vaccination: A Meta-Analysis.

Background: Social support and social integration have been linked to lower rates of morbidity and mortality. However, the biological mechanisms responsible for such links need greater attention. Vaccine paradigms provide an integrative window into immune system involvement in the protective influence of social support/integration.

Regulatory effectiveness of social support.

Receiving social support can entail both costs and benefits for recipients. Thus, theories of effective support have proposed that support should address recipients' needs to be beneficial. This paper proposes the importance of support that addresses recipients' self-regulatory needs.

High-quality relationships strengthen the benefits of a younger subjective age across adulthood.

Feeling younger than one's chronological age-a younger subjective age bias-has been consistently linked to healthy aging. However, little is known about conditions under which such benefits are strengthened. In high-quality relationships, partners affirm individuals' self-views and offer support that can encourage individuals to engage in behaviors compatible with their subjective age.

Causal processes in psychology are heterogeneous.

All experimenters know that human and animal subjects do not respond uniformly to experimental treatments. Yet theories and findings in experimental psychology either ignore this causal effect heterogeneity or treat it as uninteresting error. This is the case even when data are available to examine effect heterogeneity directly, in within-subjects designs where experimental effects can be examined subject by subject.

Motivation moderates the effects of social support visibility.

Social support can sometimes have negative consequences for recipients. One way of circumventing these negative effects is to provide support in an 'invisible' or indirect manner, such that recipients do not construe the behavior as a supportive act. However, little is known about how recipients' motivational states influence when visible (direct) support or invisible support is more beneficial.

Giving the Help That Is Needed: How Regulatory Mode Impacts Social Support.

Social support is most effective when it meets recipients' needs. Guided by regulatory mode theory, this article examines how support providers' chronic motivational concerns with assessment and locomotion shape help provision. We hypothesized that stronger assessment concerns motivate helpers to "tailor" support efforts by offering support that meets helpees' specific motivational concerns and not offering support that would fail to address these concerns.