Relationships and Health 411relationship. This may be because women are
more adept than men at providing the features
of social interactions that benefit health. In
particular, women may be more effective sup-
port providers. A laboratory study supported
this conclusion (Glynn, Christenfeld, & Gerin,
1999). College students underwent a stressful
task (giving a speech) in the presence of either
a supportive or nonsupportive confederate.
The confederate was either male or female.
Support from a female decreased both men’s
and women’s cardiovascular reactivities (i.e.,
increases in blood pressure), whereas support
from a male had no effect. Thus the mere exis-
tence of a relationship with a woman is health
protective, whereas the nature of the rela-
tionship with a man must be considered for
women to reap health benefits.TAKE HOME POINTS
■ Whereas simply being married influences men’s more
than women’s health, the quality of marriage has a
greater effect on women’s health.
■ The evidence that supports this claim is stronger for
studies of marital interactions than for surveys of self-
reported marital quality.
■ The nature of marital interactions is more strongly asso-
ciated with physiological changes in women than men.Division of Labor
Who does what in the family, or the division
of labor, is an important aspect of marital
relationships that has effects on psychologi-
cal and physical health. A sex-segregated
division of labor consists of men working
outside the home and women working inside
the home. The way work is divided affects
the quality of the marital relationship as welldiscussion was associated with changes in
immune function and elevations in blood
pressure in both women and men, but women
showed more negative immune changes
than men (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1993). En-
docrine function was later examined in these
same couples (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1996).
Husbands’ behavior during the interaction in-
fluenced the production of hormones in wives;
for example, when husbands withdrew from
conflict, wives’ cortisol increased, and when
husbands provided validation, wives’ stress
hormones decreased. The behavior of wives
was not related to men’s hormone levels. These
findings are consistent with Floyd and Mark-
man’s (1983) idea that women are the emo-
tional barometers of relationships. Women’s
bodies respond physiologically to the nature of
marital interactions, whereas men’s do not.
The greater physiological responsive-
ness of women compared to men in these
studies directly contradicts Gottman’s (1994)
explanation for why men withdraw from dis-
cussions of conflict. Recall from Chapter 9
that he argued men withdraw because they are
more physiologically reactive to stress and less
able than women to tolerate such physiologi-
cal changes. These studies suggest it is women
who are more physiologically reactive.
One reason that discussions about con-
flict produce greater physiological changes in
women compared to men is that such discus-
sions may be more threatening to women.
Relationships are central to the female gen-
der role, and conflict is a threat to relation-
ships. As women’s and men’s roles become
more equal, we might expect future studies
to show similar effects of marital quality on
men’s and women’s health.
To summarize, it appears that what is
important for men is the mere presence of a
spouse, but what is important for women is
the support of the spouse or the quality of theM11_HELG0185_04_SE_C11.indd 411 6/21/11 12:43 PM