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It is widely acknowledged that social relationships unfold across multiple time-scales. For example, social interactions that take place over moments, hours, or days also shape relationship change and outcomes over months, years, and even decades. These processes likely unfold in the reverse direction as well: experiences over longer-term timeframes may shape how people interact on a moment-to-moment basis. The increasing availability of intensive longitudinal data and measurement burst designs, as well as creativity in the contexts and modes of data collection--including social media, text messages, and event-contingent sampling--have exploded the possibilities for advancing knowledge on social relationships across multiple time-scales. The aim of this issue is to forward methodological innovations, empirical findings, and future directions in relationship science through the study of social and personal relationships across multiple time-scales.

Studies using probability samples have yielded cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between relationship dissolution and psychopathology, including depressive, anxiety, and substance use symptoms and disorders. The present review summarizes theory relevant to the association of relationship dissolution to psychopathology, discusses the time course over which postdissolution psychopathology may be most likely to manifest, and selectively reviews empirical findings regarding main and moderated associations between relationship dissolution and psychopathology. We conclude by acknowledging the need for continued study of the association between relationship dissolution and psychopathology, including research that rules out potential rival explanations (i.e., confounding variables) for this association and examines this association across cultures and types of intimate relationships (e.g., cohabiting relationships).

Social baseline theory (SBT) maintains that the primary human ecology is a social ecology. Because of this fact, the theory predicts that humans will find it easier and less energetically taxing to regulate emotion and act when in proximity to familiar and predictable others. This article reviews new empirical and theoretical work related to SBT and highlights areas of needed research. Among these exciting developments are investigations of the neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation, the creation of a model of social allostasis, and work investigating at the impact of social proximity in real-world contexts. SBT continues to accrue support and inspire new theoretical and empirical contributions.

Self-compassion is a positive psychological construct associated with heightened well-being, but the construct is largely measured via self-report. In a study of divorcing adults ( N = 120), we sought to replicate and extend prior research on the association between self-rated and observed self-compassion, the linguistic cues associated with self-rated and observed self-compassion, and the predictive utility of observed self-compassion. Untrained observers rated participants’ stream-of-consciousness recordings about their marriage and separation experience. We found adequate consensus among raters of observed self-compassion and a significant, positive association between self-rated and observed self-compassion. Greater self- and observer-rated self-compassion were associated with less distress at baseline; however, only observed self-compassion was associated with less distress at the final study assessment. Discussion centers on the cues observers use to perceive self-compassion in others and the extent to which behavioral manifestations of affect may shape such ratings.

Although marital infidelity is often cited as a primary reason for divorce, it does not always signify the end of a relationship. Many researchers and clinicians have questioned whether an extramarital affair is a symptom of a dysfunctional marriage that is headed for divorce or the proximal cause of the separation. More than half of individuals who have extramarital affairs divorce or separate from their spouse. In the current chapter, we answer the question: In what ways can infidelity shape postdivorce emotional reactions and recovery—that is, trajectories of adjustment over time? There are two identified factors that inhibit postdivorce adjustment: attachment-related emotion regulation and emotional suppression. Further, the mechanisms driving postdivorce adjustment, self-concept clarity and narrative coherence, are discussed in the context of how infidelity can be interpreted as a humiliating event and predict poorer postdivorce adjustment. When infidelity occurs and divorce follows, if infidelity is interpreted as a humiliating event, or if it is experienced as a targeted rejection to one’s sense of self, these predict poorer divorce adjustment and depression. Suggestions for future research in this area are discussed.

Both greater cardiovascular reactivity and lesser reactivity ("blunting") to laboratory stressors are linked to poor health outcomes, including among people who have a history of traumatic experiences. In a sample of recently separated and divorced adults (N = 96), this study examined whether differences in cardiovascular reactivity might be explained by differences in the personal emotional salience of the tasks and trauma history. Participants were assessed for trauma history, current distress related to their marital dissolution, and cardiovascular reactivity during two tasks, a serial subtraction math stressor task and a divorce-recall task. Participants with a greater trauma history evidenced less blood pressure reactivity to the serial subtraction task (a low personal emotional salience task) when compared to participants with less trauma history. In contrast, participants with a greater trauma history evidenced higher blood pressure reactivity to the divorce-recall task, but only if they also reported more divorce-related distress (high personal emotional salience). These associations were not significant for heart rate reactivity. Among people with a history of more traumatic experiences, a task with low personal salience was associated with a lower blood pressure response, whereas a task with higher personal emotional salience was associated with a higher blood pressure response. Future studies examining cardiovascular reactivity would benefit from determining the personal emotional salience of tasks, particularly for groups that have experienced stressful life events or trauma.

The study of intimate relationships and health is a fast-growing discipline with numerous well-developed theories, many of which outline specific interpersonal behaviors and psychological pathways that may give rise to good or poor health. The central argument of this review paper is that the study of relationships and health can move toward interrogating these mechanisms with greater precision and detail, but doing so will require a shift in the nature of commonly used research methods in this area. Accordingly, our review draws heavily on recent work on the science of behavior change and discusses six key methodologies that may galvanize the mechanistic study of relationships and health: dismantling studies, factorial studies, experimental therapeutics, experimental mediation research, multiple assessments, and recursive modelling. We provide empirical examples for each strategy and outline new ways in which a given approach may be used to study the mechanisms linking intimate relationships and health. The paper concludes with a discussion of the key challenges and limitations for using these research strategies as well as novel ideas about how to integrate this work into existing paradigms within the field.

Marital disruption is associated with increased risk for a range of poor health outcomes, including disturbed sleep. This report examines trajectories of actigraphy-assessed sleep efficiency following marital separation as well as the extent to which daily social behaviors and individual differences in attachment explain variability in these trajectories over time. One hundred twenty-two recently-separated adults ( N = 122) were followed longitudinally for three assessment periods over 5 months. To objectively assess daily social behaviors and sleep efficiency, participants wore the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) during the day (for one weekend at each assessment period) and an actiwatch at night (for 7 days at each assessment period). Greater time spent with an ex-partner, as assessed by the EAR, was associated with decreased sleep efficiency between participants ( p = .003). Higher attachment anxiety was also associated with decreased sleep efficiency ( p = .03), as was the EAR-observed measure of “television on.” The latter effect operated both between ( p = .004) and within participants ( p = .005). Finally, study timepoint moderated the association between EAR-observed television on and sleep efficiency ( p = .007). The current findings deepen our understanding of sleep disturbances following marital separation and point to contact with an ex-partner and time spent with the television on as behavioral markers of risk.

Background The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to concerns about mental health resulting from regional and national lockdowns, social isolation, job loss, and concern about disease exposure. Objective We describe results of the pilot feasibility study of the See Me Serene mHealth app. The app provides users with immersive, vivid, nature experiences to reduce stress and anxiety related to COVID-19 and other isolation. The goals of the study were to develop the See Me Serene app and test the feasibility and acceptability of study procedures, and explore the potential impact of the app on stress and anxiety. Methods We developed and tested the See Me Serene app and our study procedures for feasibility, and gathered preliminary data with a goal of 100 participants. The research was conducted in 2 phases: (1) development and internal testing of the app; and (2) feasibility and pilot testing with participants recruited online through earned media (eg, news stories), presentations at a university campus, and social media (eg, online sharing of earned media and presentations). The feasibility study employed a mixed methods, within-subjects, pre-/posttest design. At baseline and 30-day follow-up, we assessed stress-related variables via validated self-report measures and saliva samples for determination of cortisol concentrations. Results We met or surpassed all our feasibility benchmarks for recruitment (101 participants recruited), retention (91% [90/99] of 30-day assessment completed), and data collection (99 participants completed all baseline data; 85% [84/99] of salivary cortisol samples returned). Participants adhered to the intervention. On average, participants listened to 48.2 audio files over 30 days or approximately 1.6 audio files per day. Participants were satisfied with the app, with 87% (78/90) rating the app as helpful in dealing with stress and anxiety. The app showed the potential to reduce stress, anxiety, loneliness, and worry. We did not find significant differences (P=.41) in cortisol levels over time. Our findings suggest that future research is warranted to test the efficacy of the See Me Serene app with a representative, diverse sample. Conclusions There is a need for evidence-based and easily disseminable stress-reduction interventions. See Me Serene is a feasible intervention and has the potential to reduce stress related to COVID-19 and other forms of social isolation. More research on See Me Serene is warranted.