Support Dynamics in the Stress-Negative Affect Link: Within Individuals, within Dyadic Pairs, and across Dyads

This study examined the moderating role of daily support transactions in the relationship between stress and negative affect. Of particular interest was the role of visible support, defined as recipients and providers reports of enacted support, and invisible support, expressed as the skillful provision of beneficial support happening outside of the support receiver’s awareness, in moderating stress-negative affect linkages in individuals within a married couple. Sixty-four cohabitating, married dyads were recruited from the Notre Dame Study of Health & Well-being. Wives and husbands were asked to individually complete nightly questionnaires each evening for 35 days. Actor Partner Independence Models (APIM) were used to examine the stress-negative affect relationship within individuals, within the married dyad, and across the sample of married dyads. Visible and invisible spousal support was then incorporated into the model to examine its moderating role in within and between couple stress-negative affect relationships. The results suggested that visible support (i.e., partner provided and perceived received support) significantly moderated the within, but not between couple stress-negative affect relationship. The visible support relationships, however, appeared to differ for wives and husbands. Invisible support was not a significant moderator of either the within or between couple stress-negative affect relationships. The results of the present study suggest that visible support transactions are an integral component in the regulation of emotional responses to daily stress within married couples, and that wives and husbands may draw on different aspects of visible support to modulate their negative emotional responses to daily stressors.