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Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38
Close social connections drive mental and physical health and promote longevity. Positive, other-focused behavior like expressing gratitude may be a key mechanism for increasing close bonds. Existing evidence consistent with this claim is predominantly correlational, likely driven by challenges in c...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9271060/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35810173 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15650-4 |
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author | Chang, Yen-Ping Way, Baldwin M. Sheeran, Paschal Kurtz, Laura E. Baucom, Donald H. Algoe, Sara B. |
author_facet | Chang, Yen-Ping Way, Baldwin M. Sheeran, Paschal Kurtz, Laura E. Baucom, Donald H. Algoe, Sara B. |
author_sort | Chang, Yen-Ping |
collection | PubMed |
description | Close social connections drive mental and physical health and promote longevity. Positive, other-focused behavior like expressing gratitude may be a key mechanism for increasing close bonds. Existing evidence consistent with this claim is predominantly correlational, likely driven by challenges in causally influencing and sustaining behavior change in the context of ongoing relationships. This 5-week field experiment with daily data from couples provides the first evidence for a brief, low-cost behavioral technique to increase everyday expressed gratitude to a romantic partner. Random assignment to the gratitude expression treatment (GET) increased the amount of time couples spent co-present in everyday life, from the weeks before GET to the weeks after, relative to the control condition. This effect was mediated by the change in expressed gratitude. Voluntary co-presence is an important behavioral indicator of close bonds in non-human animals. Further analyses with a functional genotype related to the oxytocin system (rs6449182) suggest a neurochemical pathway involved in the effects of expressing gratitude. Together, this evidence bridges animal and human research on bonding behavior and sets up future experiments on biopsychosocial mechanisms linking close bonds to health. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9271060 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-92710602022-07-11 Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38 Chang, Yen-Ping Way, Baldwin M. Sheeran, Paschal Kurtz, Laura E. Baucom, Donald H. Algoe, Sara B. Sci Rep Article Close social connections drive mental and physical health and promote longevity. Positive, other-focused behavior like expressing gratitude may be a key mechanism for increasing close bonds. Existing evidence consistent with this claim is predominantly correlational, likely driven by challenges in causally influencing and sustaining behavior change in the context of ongoing relationships. This 5-week field experiment with daily data from couples provides the first evidence for a brief, low-cost behavioral technique to increase everyday expressed gratitude to a romantic partner. Random assignment to the gratitude expression treatment (GET) increased the amount of time couples spent co-present in everyday life, from the weeks before GET to the weeks after, relative to the control condition. This effect was mediated by the change in expressed gratitude. Voluntary co-presence is an important behavioral indicator of close bonds in non-human animals. Further analyses with a functional genotype related to the oxytocin system (rs6449182) suggest a neurochemical pathway involved in the effects of expressing gratitude. Together, this evidence bridges animal and human research on bonding behavior and sets up future experiments on biopsychosocial mechanisms linking close bonds to health. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9271060/ /pubmed/35810173 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15650-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Chang, Yen-Ping Way, Baldwin M. Sheeran, Paschal Kurtz, Laura E. Baucom, Donald H. Algoe, Sara B. Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38 |
title | Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38 |
title_full | Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38 |
title_fullStr | Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38 |
title_full_unstemmed | Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38 |
title_short | Implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in CD38 |
title_sort | implementation intentions to express gratitude increase daily time co-present with an intimate partner, and moderate effects of variation in cd38 |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9271060/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35810173 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15650-4 |
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