Romantic conflict, interpersonal mindfulness, and cellular aging

Interpersonal relationships can affect health (Ellison et al., 2016, Laurent et al., 2013) including biological and cellular aging processes measured through telomere length (Rentscher et al., 2020). Despite established associations between romantic conflict and health outcomes (Cummings et al., 2007), empirical evidence has yet to emerge supporting a link between romantic conflict and telomere length. Given the frequency with which adults may experience romantic conflict (Papp et al., 2002), it is important to understand how multi-faceted romantic conflict experiences impact health so that targeted interventions can be developed. Mindfulness has well-established benefits for health (Lucas-Thompson et al., 2019) and close personal relationships (Pratscher et al., 2018; Townshend et al., 2016), thus mindful partnering (Seiter et al., 2021) may be a fruitful avenue for such intervention. Using a community sample of 30 couples, this study explored hypothesized associations between romantic conflict and telomere length, as well as the moderating effects of mindful partnering, through self-reported and observational data. A small but non-significant association was found between romantic conflict and telomere length, and no significant moderating effect of mindful partnering emerged.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (M.S.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human Development and Family Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Colorado State University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Authors dc:creator

• Rigsby, Brock A., author
• Lucas-Thompson, Rachel, advisor
• Brown, Samantha, committee member
• Faw, Meara, committee member

• couple processes
• mindful partnering
• telomere
• interpersonal mindfulness
• cellular aging
• romantic conflict

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.25675/3.02418

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/238362