The Heart of Conversation: Using State Space Grids to Disentangle Cardiovascular and Affect Dynamics During Couple Interaction

We demonstrate the use of the state space grid as a within-individual measure of cardio-affective response. Data comes from a handful of randomly selected participant couples who were part of an earlier study. Couples were asked to have a conversation about a recent incident where they felt hurt or offended in their relationship. BioPAC hardware was used to collect cardiovascular data. Following the conversation, each partner provided a continuous self-report of their affect state as they re-watched the video of the conversation. Inter-beat interval was selected as the cardiovascular variable due to its near-continuous nature and similarity in structure to the affect data. The purpose of this exercise is to first explore the viability of creating within-subject measures that are composites of both affective and physiological data and the variables that might be generated and tested via traditional statistical analyses. We also explore the emergence of pattern and structure when combining two streams of data from different sources. We finally look at the possibility of physiological synchrony between romantic partners by loading both partners’ IBI streams into the state space grid.

[1]  C. Hazan,et al.  Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[2]  J. Gottman,et al.  Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: behavior, physiology, and health. , 1992 .

[3]  G. Creasey,et al.  Generalized and Specific Attachment Representations: Unique and Interactive Roles in Predicting Conflict Behaviors in Close Relationships , 2005, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[4]  R. Borgatti,et al.  A dynamic system analysis of dyadic flexibility and stability across the Face-to-Face Still-Face procedure: application of the State Space Grid. , 2015, Infant behavior & development.

[5]  L. Carstensen,et al.  Emotional behavior in long-term marriage. , 1995, Psychology and aging.

[6]  J. Gottman,et al.  Predicting divorce among newlyweds from the first three minutes of a marital conflict discussion. , 1999, Family process.

[7]  J. Gottman.  Detecting cyclicity in social interaction. , 1979 .

[8]  J. Simpson,et al.  Conflict in close relationships: an attachment perspective. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[9]  John M. Gottman,et al.  Predicting Marital Happiness and Stability from Newlywed Interactions , 1998 .

[10]  W. Griffin.  Transitions from negative affect during marital interaction: Husband and wife differences. , 1993 .

[11]  Tom Hollenstein,et al.  Dynamic systems methods for models of developmental psychopathology , 2003, Development and Psychopathology.

[12]  Brandt C. Gardner,et al.  Observed Attachment and Self-Report Affect Within Romantic Relationships , 2017 .

[13]  M. Ainsworth,et al.  Attachment, exploration, and separation: illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. , 1970, Child development.

[14]  J. Gottman,et al.  Psychology and the study of marital processes. , 1998, Annual review of psychology.

[15]  J. Gottman,et al.  Marital interaction: physiological linkage and affective exchange. , 1983, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  E. Waters,et al.  Attachment security in infancy and early adulthood: a twenty-year longitudinal study. , 2000, Child development.

[17]  A. Harrist,et al.  Family Resilience: Moving into the Third Wave , 2015 .

[18]  Kelly A. Brennan,et al.  An item response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[19]  Harold L. Raush,et al.  Communication conflict and marriage. , 1975 .

[20]  N. Allen,et al.  Affective patterns in triadic family interactions: Associations with adolescent depression , 2015, Development and Psychopathology.

[21]  Ronald D. Rogge,et al.  Problem-solving skills and affective expressions as predictors of change in marital satisfaction. , 2005, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[22]  Assessing secure base behavior in adulthood: development of a measure, links to adult attachment representations, and relations to couples' communication and reports of relationships. , 2002 .

[23]  J. Bowlby.  Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect. , 1969, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[24]  D. Gilbert,et al.  Factors characterizing marital conflict states and traits: physiological, affective, behavioral and neurotic variable contributions to marital conflict and satisfaction , 1998 .

[25]  W. Malarkey,et al.  Love, marriage, and divorce: newlyweds' stress hormones foreshadow relationship changes. , 2003, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[26]  Matthew D Johnson,et al.  Premarital affect as a predictor of postnuptial marital satisfaction , 2011 .

[27]  J. Gottman,et al.  Decade Review: Observing Marital Interaction , 2000 .

[28]  Kelly A. Brennan,et al.  Self-report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview. , 1998 .

[29]  David Schuldberg,et al.  Dynamics and Correlates of Microscopic Changes in Affect , 2002 .

[30]  Attachment, Perceived Conflict, and Couple Satisfaction: Test of a Mediational Dyadic Model , 2009 .

[31]  J. Graham,et al.  A Reliability Generalization Meta-Analysis of Self-Report Measures of Adult Attachment , 2015, Journal of personality assessment.

[32]  Julie S. Gottman,et al.  The Natural Principles of Love , 2017 .

[33]  Daniel S. Hubler,et al.  Applying the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to Micro-Level Analyses of Marital Partner Affect During Couple Conversations: An Exploratory Investigation , 2013 .

[34]  D. Watson,et al.  Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[35]  E. Waters,et al.  A secure base from which to explore close relationships. , 2000, Child development.

[36]  Clark Christensen,et al.  A REVISION OF THE DYADIC ADJUSTMENT SCALE FOR USE WITH DISTRESSED AND NONDISTRESSED COUPLES: CONSTRUCT HIERARCHY AND MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALES , 1995 .

[37]  C. Notarius,et al.  Marital research in the 20th century and a research agenda for the 21st century. , 2002, Family process.

[38]  Xun Li,et al.  Using Bayesian Nonparametric Hidden Semi-Markov Models to Disentangle Affect Processes during Marital Interaction , 2016, PloS one.

[39]  Tom Hollenstein,et al.  State Space Grids: Depicting Dynamics Across Development , 2012 .

[40]  Brandt C. Gardner,et al.  Uncovering Dynamical Properties in the Emotional System of Married Couples , 2008 .

[41]  D. A. Smith,et al.  Longitudinal prediction of marital discord from premarital expressions of affect. , 1990, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[42]  R. Slatcher,et al.  Marital quality and health: a meta-analytic review. , 2014, Psychological bulletin.

[43]  J. Gottman,et al.  Physiological and affective predictors of change in relationship satisfaction. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[44]  W. Griffin.  Affect Pattern Recognition , 2002 .

[45]  J. Kiecolt-Glaser,et al.  The physiology of marriage: pathways to health , 2003, Physiology & Behavior.

[46]  Tom Hollenstein,et al.  Maternal Regulation of Daughters' Emotion During Conflicts From Early to Mid-Adolescence. , 2016, Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence.

[47]  R. Levenson,et al.  Physiological down-regulation and positive emotion in marital interaction. , 2010, Emotion.