Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Psychophysiology. 2022 Aug;59(8):e14044. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14044. Epub 2022 Mar 18.
Close others often serve as a source of support for our pursuit of personal goals. Although social psychological research indicates that individuals and relationships benefit when couple members provide each other with secure base support for personal goals, few studies have investigated the physiological bases of these types of support interactions. This study of married older adults examined support providers' cardiovascular challenge-threat responses while they engaged in a laboratory social interaction about the most important goal that their partner (the target) wanted to make progress toward during the next year. Consistent with our hypothesis, support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses were positively associated with targets' ratings of their secure base support provision during the discussion. This study also used structural equation modeling to test a theoretical model of support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses as a physiological basis of secure base support provision that promotes targets' goal progress and thriving over time. Consistent with our theory, support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses were positively associated with targets' goal progress at Year 2 follow-up. In turn, targets' goal progress at Year 2 predicted increases in targets' overall thriving from Year 1 to Year 3. This investigation provides novel evidence for attachment theory's assertion that biobehavioral caregiving system activation facilitates the provision of secure base support that promotes close others' goal progress and thriving over time. Results of this study also contribute to recent evidence that cardiovascular challenge responses are associated with social behaviors during dyadic interactions.
他人常常是我们追求个人目标的支持来源。尽管社会心理学研究表明，当夫妻双方为彼此的个人目标提供安全基地支持时，个人和关系都会受益，但很少有研究调查这些类型的支持互动的生理基础。这项针对已婚老年成年人的研究考察了支持提供者在实验室社交互动中对伴侣（目标）在未来一年中最想取得进展的最重要目标的心血管挑战-威胁反应。与我们的假设一致，支持提供者的心血管挑战反应与目标在讨论中对其安全基地支持提供的评分呈正相关。本研究还使用结构方程模型检验了支持提供者的心血管挑战反应作为促进目标随着时间的推移取得目标进展和茁壮成长的安全基地支持提供的生理基础的理论模型。与我们的理论一致，支持提供者的心血管挑战反应与目标在第二年的随访中的目标进展呈正相关。反过来，目标在第二年的目标进展预测了目标从第一年到第三年的整体茁壮成长的增加。这项调查为依恋理论的主张提供了新的证据，即生物行为养育系统的激活促进了安全基地支持的提供，从而促进了亲密他人随着时间的推移取得目标进展和茁壮成长。本研究的结果还为心血管挑战反应与二元互动中的社会行为有关的最新证据做出了贡献。
