Lean on me: Susceptibility to partner affect attenuates psychological distress over a 12-month period

Symptoms of psychological distress are associated with the experience of heightened negative affect, and the inability to successfully regulate one's emotions. Romantic partners can, however, influence and regulate each other's emotional experiences, especially during times of distress. Using daily diary measures taken 4 times per day over a 10-day period, we examined whether susceptibility to partner affect was associated with levels and trajectories of psychological distress over 12 months. Results from both partners of 103 committed relationships (206 individuals) found that men and women showed decreased levels of distress over the year when they were more susceptible to their partner's positive affect, but the degree of susceptibility varied with respect to negative affect. Examining susceptibility to partner affect may be a valuable complementary approach to studying relational contributions to the social regulation of emotions, especially in understanding the progression of psychological distress.