Psychology
http://content.apa.org/journals/psp.rss
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 129(6), Dec 2025, 1240-1256; doi:10.1037/pspp0000564
An emerging body of research suggests that shared positive emotions predict health and longevity over and above individually experienced positive emotions. However, the extent to which relationship partners coexperience positive emotions in daily life remains poorly understood. Moreover, while laboratory research shows important distal effects of shared positive emotions on health and longevity, the extent to which positive emotions may “get under the skin,” shaping proximal biomarkers in everyday life, is unclear. In response, the present research harmonized data from three intensive measurement studies to investigate coexperienced positive emotions in couples’ daily lives and the links with momentary cortisol secretion in 321 older adult couples aged 56–89 years. Results showed that on occasions when relationship partners were together, both partners reported positive emotions higher than their usual at approximately 38% of occasions. Adjusting for age, sex, assay version, partner’s mean positive emotions, diurnal cortisol rhythm, medication, behaviors that may influence cortisol secretion, and person-mean centered positive emotions, coexperienced positive emotions were associated with lower concurrent cortisol secretion. Findings did not differ across age, sex, or relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, coexperienced positive emotions were associated with lower cortisol at the subsequent assessment but not vice versa, suggesting potentially enduring physiological impacts of coexperienced positive emotions beyond the present moment. Together, findings show that coexperienced positive emotions are associated with lower momentary cortisol secretion over and beyond individually experienced positive emotions, emphasizing the importance of fostering shared positive emotions in close relationships to promote physiological responding in older adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
