Researchers found that men find hostility stressful in a relationship.
THURSDAY, Oct. 18, 2012 —
Researchers at Penn State studied couples expecting their first child and looked at their stress levels, measured by the amount of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva during a discussion about conflict-causing topics. They found that when there was a higher level of hostility during the conflict, the men experienced greater stress reactions, but the pregnant women did not.
"Hostility and negativity in a relationship has been shown to have a major impact on mental health and the future well-being of the couple," said Mark Feinberg, research professor in the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development at Penn State in a press release.
"It is especially important to understand how relationship conflict may affect stress during pregnancy, as maternal stress has been linked to health problems for both the mother and child," added Feinberg.
The subjects in the study were 138 heterosexual couples expecting first babies. First, the expectant parents were taped in two six-minute interviews where they discussed something not related to their relationship.
Next, they were asked to talk about three problems in their relationship, such as money or housework. During the interviews, the researchers collected saliva samples from the participants to measure their cortisol levels. Researchers collected the first sample prior to the videotaping, the second sample after the conflict discussion, and the third sample 20 minutes after the second sample to determine whether cortisol levels had gone back down, indicating recovery from stress.
They found that greater hostility in a conflict discussion led to increased levels of cortisol in the men. The same pattern was not found for the women. Researchers speculate that might be because women naturally have higher cortisol levels in pregnancy, but they don't know for sure.
“We found that all men appeared to find hostility stressful," said Feinberg. "For generally anxious men, more expressed hostility was also linked to more persistence of this elevated stress.”
The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology
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