Couples research reaches for personality, attachment and communication skill to explain why a conflict goes badly. A much duller candidate sits underneath all of them. So two studies tested it. One was a fourteen-day tracking conflict against the previous night’s sleep. The other brought couples into a laboratory for a conflict conversation, with both partners’ sleep on the record. Does sleep show up?
It shows up on both partners. Participants reported more conflict following poor nights of sleep. In the laboratory, one partner’s poor sleep went with a lower ratio of , both self-reported and observed, and with decreased for both people during the conversation. Resolution happened most when both partners were well rested. Stress, anxiety, depression and relationship satisfaction did not explain it.
Explanations for why a couple’s conflict goes badly usually reach for stable things: attachment style, personality, communication skill. This research examined the impact of a basic biological process instead, testing whether poor sleep influences the degree, nature and resolution of conflict.
Study 1 was a fourteen-day daily experience study, which lets each participant serve as their own comparison across good and bad nights. Participants reported more conflict in their romantic relationships following poor nights of sleep.
Study 2 brought couples into the laboratory to assess the effects, with both partners’ sleep known and a conflict conversation to have. One partner’s poor sleep was associated with a lower ratio of positive to negative affect, both self-reported and observed, and with decreased empathic accuracy for both partners during the conversation. Conflict resolution occurred most when both partners were well rested.
The authors checked the obvious alternatives. Stress, anxiety, depression, lack of relationship satisfaction and partners being the source of each other’s poor sleep all failed to explain the effects. What remains is an association rather than a manipulation. The researchers recorded sleep without assigning it, so something that disturbs sleep could in principle also disturb the relationship independently.
wat. Arguments got worse after a poor night, and resolution arrived mostly on the days when both partners had slept well.
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It identifies something a couple can actually change, and it is dyadic. One person sleeping badly degraded the other’s empathic accuracy too, so the cost does not stay with the person who lost the sleep.
How do we know?
Gordon and Chen ran a fourteen-day daily experience study of conflict and sleep, then brought couples into the laboratory to assess the dyadic effects of sleep on the nature and resolution of a conflict conversation.
What is still unknown
Sleep was recorded rather than manipulated, so this is association. The authors ruled out several alternative explanations without being able to exclude the possibility that whatever disturbed the sleep also disturbed the relationship.
Learn something?
Where to next
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