Mindfulness and romantic relationship quality

健康心理学中最有力的发现之一是，低质量的人际关系会使人们面临一系列疾病的风险，包括炎症、抑郁和过早死亡。因此，确定可扩展的干预措施，改善关系质量，从而改善疾病结果，是一项重要的公共卫生目标。正念干预，鼓励对当前经历的关注和接受，是改善关系质量的一个有希望的目标。例如，特质正念较高的人自我报告的恋爱关系质量也较高。此外，相对于非积极的等待名单控制，正念干预改善了自我报告的恋爱关系质量。先前研究的等候名单比较条件使得正念干预本身或非特定干预因素（例如，积极的治疗期望）驱动积极的关系结果变得不清楚，这是一个显著的限制。因此，关键的下一步是将正念干预与主动控制比较条件进行比较。本提案的总体目标是通过实验测试正念干预是否能改善关系质量，通过主观和客观的测量来评估，相对于积极的对照比较。在这个探索性的R21中，我们特别关注正念和恋爱关系的质量，因为这种关注建立在恋爱关系和疾病结果之间已经确立的联系上。来自社区的浪漫情侣将被随机分配到两组中的一组：正念组和主动控制组。两项干预都将在智能手机上完成，为期14天，使用与我们现有发表的研究相同的干预活动。在为期14天的实验前后，情侣们将参加实验室访问，并提供主观和客观的关系质量数据。在干预前后，参与者还将提供次要健康数据：睡眠质量、自评健康、抑郁症状、个人幸福感、心率、收缩压和舒张压。尽管多篇高影响力的理论论文强调了检验正念干预对关系质量影响的必要性，但实证工作却很少。考虑到低质量的关系会大大增加发病率和加速死亡的风险，这种研究的缺乏令人惊讶。这项研究是测试正念干预作为改善关系质量的手段的第一步。如果R21的目标得以实现，研究团队将利用这些数据提出一项关于正念、人际关系和疾病结果的更大规模研究。本研究项目的长期目标是了解正念干预是否能提高关系质量，从而改善疾病结果。如果这一目标得以实现，研究小组将确定一种可扩展的干预措施，以丰富人们的关系质量，并改善他们的健康状况。在这样做的过程中，这些数据将确定改善的关系质量是一种新机制，通过这种机制，正念改变了疾病的结果。

One of the most robust findings in health psychology is that poor quality relationships place people at risk for an array of disease outcomes, including inflammation, depression, and premature mortality. Thus, identifying scalable interventions that improve relationship quality, thereby improving disease outcomes, is an essential public health goal. Mindfulness interventions, which encourage attention towards and acceptance of current experiences, are a promising target for improving relationship quality. For example, people who are higher in trait mindfulness also self-report having higher romantic relationship quality. In addition, a mindfulness intervention improved self-reported romantic relationship quality relative to a non-active wait-list control. The wait-list comparison condition from prior work makes it unclear whether the mindfulness intervention itself or non-specific intervention factors (e.g., positive treatment expectancies) were driving positive relationship outcomes, a significant limitation. Thus, a critical next step is to compare a mindfulness intervention to an active control comparison condition. The overarching aim of this proposal is to experimentally test whether a mindfulness intervention improves relationship quality, assessed via both subjective and objective measures, relative to an active control comparison. We focus specifically on mindfulness and romantic relationship quality in this exploratory R21 because this focus builds on a well-established link between romantic relationships and disease outcomes. Romantic couples from the community will be randomly assigned to one of two arms: mindfulness vs. active control. Both interventions will be completed on a smart-phone for 14 days using identical intervention activities as our existing published research. Before and after the 14-day period, couples will attend a lab visit and provide subjective and objective relationship quality data. Before and after the intervention, participants will also provide secondary health data: sleep quality, self-rated health, depressive symptoms, personal well-being, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure. Although multiple high impact theoretical papers have underscored the need to examine the effect of a mindfulness intervention on relationship quality, empirical work is sparse. This lack of research is surprising given that poor quality relationships robustly increase risk for morbidity and accelerated mortality. This study is the first step towards testing a mindfulness intervention as a means to improving relationship quality. If the aims of this R21 are achieved, the research team will use these data to propose a larger study about mindfulness, relationships, and disease outcomes. The long-term goal of this research program is to understand whether a mindfulness intervention enhances relationship quality, thereby improving disease outcomes. If this goal is achieved, the research team will have identified a scalable intervention for enriching the quality of people’s relationships, with the downstream consequence of also improving their health. In doing so, these data would identify improved relationship quality as a novel mechanism through which mindfulness alters disease outcomes.