RUI: Mechanisms That Link Conflict and Sleep Over Time

在与伴侣共睡的成年人中，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，在发生冲突后睡眠会更差，而在睡眠不足后冲突会更多。然而，为什么睡眠质量差和人际冲突相关，以及哪些因素可能增加或减少这种联系，人们知之甚少。人际冲突和睡眠不足都与慢性压力、免疫功能下降、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，并对面临父母冲突的儿童的发展产生负面影响。了解冲突和睡眠之间的联系对于减少这些损失是必要的。这项研究将检查行为、情感、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相关。它还将测试自我调节能力差（难以调整行为、情绪和想法以应对环境要求）是否会使一些人更容易受到冲突和睡眠之间负面联系的影响。具体的关系过程如何促进睡眠质量，以及睡眠质量的各个方面如何减少冲突的严重程度和频率，这些发现可以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得到加强的资源）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，最终影响公共卫生、经济和儿童发展。这项对200对夫妇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是如何随着时间的推移与客观和主观睡眠质量测量的波动相关的。这项研究有三个目标。首先是确定伴侣对实验室冲突的行为、情绪和生理压力反应与他们自己和彼此的典型睡眠质量之间的关系。第二个是确定冲突的具体特征与睡眠之间的联系方向，使用交叉滞后分析，在家中收集了超过14天的双重日记和睡眠评估。第三个目标是确定自我调节的发育组织标记（依恋、心率变异性、反刍和冲突后恢复行为）是否随着时间的推移调节冲突和睡眠之间的联系。这项研究将通过提出一个理论推导的模型来解释人际压力反应和调节的个体差异，这些个体差异影响着两种至关重要的社会环境中的行为。此外，该项目将通过让不同的本科女性参与指导的研究和发现，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.