Columbia Couples Lab
Description
At the Columbia Couples Lab, we study dyadic adjustment processes, especially those where
dyad members are facing stressful experiences. We use intensive repeated-measures designs
to study dyad members and their interactions. Our methods include daily diary studies,
behavioral studies of interaction, and psychophysiology studies of stress and support.
We are also interested in new statistical methods that can capture the dynamics of adjustment
in individuals and dyads.
For more information, please see the Couples Lab web site.
A Current Research Project
In our most recent research, we make use of both lab-based experimental studies and
naturalistic, longitudinal studies of daily experiences. In a current study looking at
stress and social support processes in couples, we use a sample of romantic partners who
have been living together for at least six months. Each member of the couple fills out an
online diary every morning and evening for one month, giving us a portrait of daily events,
dyadic interactions and moods from each partner's perspective.
After completing the one-month diary phase, the couple comes into the lab for two experimental
sessions where we collect physiological data (heart rate and galvanic skin response). During
these sessions, the female partner completes a stress-inducing artithmetic task, one time with
her partner present, and one time by herself. We plan to examine how stress reactivity is
influenced by the presence of the partner by looking at both task performance and physiological
data. Because we have a month of daily diary data already on each couple that completes the task,
we will know how they tend to interact and support each other at home, and we can see whether
that will predict how they react to their partner's presence during a stressful task.
In the second component of the lab portion of the study, we have members of each couple discuss
challenging issues in their daily lives. We videotape these discussions, and then separate the
couple so that each partner can watch and continuously rate these discussions for support receipt
and provision. From these ratings, we can gauge the extent to which partners agree with each other
on whether and when a supportive action has taken place. With this measure, we will examine the
relative effectiveness of "visible" versus "invisible" support - with visibility of support
operationalized by the correlation of the partners' support ratings while watching the video
of their discussion.
People
- Director: Niall Bolger
- Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr. Gertraud Stadler
- Lab Manager: Christine Paprocki
- Major Collaborator: Prof. Patrick Shrout, Psychology, New York University