RUI: Mechanisms That Link Conflict and Sleep Over Time

在与伴侣同床共眠的成年人中，他们的睡眠质量与他们关系中的冲突程度密切相关。人们报告说，在冲突之后睡眠更差，而在睡眠不佳后冲突更多。然而，对于睡眠质量差和人际冲突之间的关系，以及哪些因素可能会增加或减少这种联系，人们知之甚少。人际冲突和睡眠不佳都与慢性压力、免疫功能降低、寿命缩短和生活满意度降低有关。它们还造成了惊人的社会和经济负担，每年给国家造成数千亿美元的损失，并对受父母冲突影响的儿童的发展产生负面影响。了解是什么导致了冲突和睡眠之间的联系，这对于减少这些费用是必要的。这项研究将考察行为、情绪、认知和心理生理途径，通过这些途径，睡眠和冲突随着时间的推移而联系在一起。它还将测试不良的自律(难以根据环境要求调整行为、情绪和思想)是否会使一些人更容易受到冲突和睡眠之间的负面联系的影响。具体的关系过程如何提高睡眠质量，以及睡眠质量的各个方面如何降低冲突的严重程度和频率，这一发现可能会为治疗痛苦夫妇的治疗师提供干预策略。自我调节(一种可以通过培训和实践加强的资源)可以保护人们免受这些负面影响，这一发现将促进干预和预防，最终影响公共健康、经济和儿童发展。这项对200对夫妇进行的多方法纵向研究将调查观察到的和自我报告的冲突特征与睡眠质量客观和主观指标随时间的波动是如何关联的。这项研究有三个目标。第一个是确定伴侣对基于实验室的冲突的行为、情绪和生理压力反应与他们自己和彼此典型的睡眠质量之间的关系。第二种方法是通过对14天来在家中收集的每日日记和睡眠评估的交叉滞后分析，确定冲突的具体特征与睡眠之间随时间变化的联系方向。第三个目标是确定随着时间的推移，自我调节的发展组织标志(依恋、心率变异性、沉思和冲突后恢复行为)是否会缓和冲突和睡眠之间的联系。这项研究将为科学做出贡献，提出一个从理论上推导出的个体在人际压力、反应性和调节方面的差异模型，这些差异会在两个关键的社会背景下影响行为。此外，该项目将通过邀请不同的本科生女性参与有指导的研究和发现，为下一代STEM科学家提供培训。

Among adults who co-sleep with a partner, the quality of their sleep is strongly related to the amount of conflict in their relationships. People report worse sleep after conflict and more conflict after poor sleep. However, little is known about why poor sleep and interpersonal conflict are related or what factors might increase or decrease the connection. Both interpersonal conflict and poor sleep are associated with chronic stress, reduced immune function, shorter lifespan, and lower life satisfaction. They also impose staggering social and economic burdens, costing the nation hundreds of billions of dollars every year and negatively impacting the development of children exposed to parental conflict. Understanding what drives links between conflict and sleep is necessary to reduce these tolls. This research will examine behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and psychophysiological pathways through which sleep and conflict are related over time. It will also test whether poor self-regulation (difficulty adjusting behavior, emotions, and thoughts in response to environmental demands) renders some people more vulnerable to negative links between conflict and sleep. The discovery of how specific relationship processes can promote sleep quality and how aspects of sleep quality can reduce conflict severity and frequency could inform intervention strategies for therapists working with distressed couples. The discovery that self-regulation (a resource that can be strengthened through training and practice) can protect people from these negative effects would advance intervention and prevention, ultimately impacting public health, the economy, and child development.This multi-method longitudinal study of 200 couples will investigate how observed and self-reported features of conflict are associated with fluctuations in objective and subjective measures of sleep quality over time. The study has three objectives. The first is to determine how partners' behavioral, emotional, and physiological stress responses to a lab-based conflict are associated with their own and each other's typical sleep quality. The second is to determine the direction of links between specific features of conflict and sleep over time, using cross-lagged analysis of dyadic daily diary and sleep assessments collected at home over 14 days. The third objective is to determine whether developmentally organized markers of self-regulation (attachment, heart rate variability, rumination, and post-conflict recovery behavior) moderate links between conflict and sleep over time. This study will contribute to science by advancing a theoretically-derived model of individual differences in interpersonal stress reactivity and regulation that affect behavior in two critically important social contexts. Additionally, this project will provide training for the next generation of STEM scientists by engaging diverse undergraduate women in mentored research and discovery.