Welcome!

Our goal is to better understand how close relationships affect, and are affected by, chronic illness in adulthood.  This work focuses on couples because most adults who suffer from a chronic illness are married or in an intimate relationship and there is strong evidence for the effects of the marital relationship on health. We use a range of methods including in-person interviews, experiments in the lab, and experience sampling as couples go about their daily lives. We often apply Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory in order to better understand mechanisms (e.g., self-efficacy) linking social interactions, health, and health behaviors. Findings from our studies are used to inform the development of couple-oriented (i.e., dyadic) behavioral interventions for chronic illness.

What our lab has been up to:

  • 7/17/24: Congratulations to Jee eun Kang, former predoctoral Fellow in the Pathways Training Program, on acceptance of her paper, Short-term Coupling Associations between State Loneliness and Cognitive Performance in Daily Life Among Older Adults, in the Journals of Gerontology Series B. Using mobile cognitive and loneliness data from 313 older adults in the Einstein Aging Study we show that momentary assessments of increased loneliness are linked to worse cognitive performance on concurrent assessments, and moments characterized by lower cognitive performance predict higher levels of loneliness 3-4 hours later (Kang, Graham-Engeland, Martire, Almeida & Sliwinski).
  • 7/7/24:  Lynn presented the first findings from the Couples' Daily Lives study at the annual meeting of the International Association for Relationship Research in Boston, MA. In this symposium we used data from the 30-day diary to demonstrate the divergent effects of relationship closeness on partners' distress and the quality of marital interactions. 
  • 5/2/24: Congratulations to Yan Huang on the publication of her accepted paper, Loneliness Trajectories Predict Risks of Cardiovascular Diseases in Chinese Middle-Aged and Older Adults, in the Journals of Gerontology Series B. In this paper Yan used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey to show that people with moderate to high rates of increasing loneliness had a greater risk of stroke than those with a low rate of increasing loneliness, over a 7-year period (Huang, Zhu, Liu, & Li).
  • 3/29/24: Congratulations to Suyoung Nah on acceptance of her first-authored paper, Effects of Receiving Pain-Related Support on Psychological Well-Being: The Moderating Roles of Emotional Responses to Support, for publication in the Journal of Aging and Health. This paper reports findings from one of Suyoung's dissertation papers, showing that receiving care from a spouse is associated with poorer psychological well-being only when emotional responses to care are not positive (Nah, Martire, & Felt).
  • 3/13/24: Congratulations to Young Won Cho,  a graduate student in HDFS and lab collaborator, on a paper to be published in the journal Multivariate Behavioral Research entitled Multilevel Latent Differential Structural Equation Model with Short Time Series and Time-Varying Covariates: A Comparison of Frequentist and Bayesian Estimators.  In this paper we use Monte Carlo simulations to show that the Bayesian approach outperforms frequentist approaches in fitting multilevel latent differential structural equation models, and provide an empirical example of this approach using data from Dr. Martire's dyadic Daily Assessment in Arthritis Study (Cho, Chow, Marini, & Martire). 
  • 11/11/23: Our Center for Healthy Aging was well represented at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Tampa, FL. Lynn co-chaired a symposium with Karen Lyons entitled Dyadic Health Science in Gerontology: Recent Advances and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. This symposium highlighted our recent position paper of the same name in The Gerontologist. Presenters included Stephanie Wilson, Joshua Novak, Jeremy Yorgason, Courtney Polenick, Theresa Pauly, and Christine Proulx. 
  • 10/27/23: Lynn participated in a Festschrift event in Pittsburgh honoring the prestigious career of Richard Schulz, her postdoc mentor and collaborator, and other prominent scholars (Sheldon Cohen, Dick Jennings, Steve Manuck, Marsha Marcus, Karen Matthews, and Mike Scheier). This event included a series of plenary talks commemorating the contributions of these scholars to Health Psychology.
  • 8/22/23: Welcome Yan Huang! Yan joined the HDFS doctoral program this Fall. She received her M.S. in Developmental and Educational Psychology from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Yan is interested in social relationships, health, and age-related changes in middle-aged and older adults. Her current focus is on the impacts of loneliness and its trajectories on older adults' health.
  • 5/18/23: Introducing Dr. Nah! Congratulations to Suyoung Nah, who successfully defended her dissertation in the HDFS doctoral program, entitled Emotional Responses to Received Support and Changes in Well-Being of Care-Recipients and their Spousal Caregivers. This dissertation used data from the Daily Assessment in Arthritis Study and the National Study of Caregiving.  Suyoung has accepted a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship at Virginia Tech in their Center for Gerontology, beginning in August.
  • 11/28/22: Lynn collaborated with a newly-formed group of dyadic researchers to write a position paper that will be published in The Forum section of The Gerontologist, entitled New Opportunities for Advancing Dyadic Health Science in Gerontology (Wilson, Novak, Yorgason, Martire, & Lyons). 
  • 11/3/22: At the GSA conference in Indianapolis (in person!) Suyoung presented her recent research findings from the Transitions study, showing that negative self-perceptions of aging help to explain the connection between poorer physical function and higher levels of depressive symptoms (Nah, Martire, & Tate).
  • 8/19/22: Introducing Dr. Tate! Congratulations to Ashley Tate, who successfully defended her dissertation in the HDFS doctoral program, entitled The Impact of Religiosity on Well-Being Among Chronically Ill Older Adults and their Caregiving Spouses. Ashley's dissertation used data from the National Study of Caregiving and the Arthritis Education Project.
  • 6/21/22: In a special issue on sleep that will be published in The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, we report that older adults’ social participation exacerbates—rather than buffers—negative effects of spousal strain on insomnia symptoms. This paper was led by Christina Marini from Adelphi University and used data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (Marini, Zhaoyang, Martire, & Buxton).
  • 4/28/22: Congratulations to Suyoung Nah, who successfully defended her dissertation proposal in the HDFS doctoral program. Suyoung's dissertation will focus on emotion processes and gratitude in spousal caregiving dyads, and will utilize data from the National Study of Caregiving and the Daily Assessment in Arthritis Study.
  • 2/18/22:  In our continued focus on the advantages and disadvantages of relationship closeness, we tested the hypothesis that sole reliance on the spouse to discuss health-related issues is harmful to the well-being of both partners. Contrary to prediction, we found evidence of increased anxiety following spousal declines in gait speed and cognitive function for those whose spouse did (rather than did not) have additional health confidants. This paper used dyadic data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, and will be published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (Martire, Zhaoyang, Marini, & Nah).
  • 8/11/21: Congratulations to Ruixue Zhaoyang who led a paper on daily social interactions and cognitive performance that will be published in PLoS One. Using data from the Einstein Aging Studies, we show that having more social interactions each day, especially more pleasant social interactions, is related to better cognitive performance the same day and over the subsequent two days, whereas cognitive performance does not predict subsequent changes in social interactions (Zhaoyang, Scott, Martire & Sliwinski).
  • 5/5/21: A paper led by Suyoung Nah has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. In this paper, Suyoung uses national data to show that spousal caregiving has a less negative impact on psychological well-being if caregivers perceive that the partner is grateful for their support (Nah, Martire, Zhaoyang).
  • 4/28/21: Congratulations to Suyoung Nah, who successfully passed her Comprehensive Exam in the HDFS doctoral program!
  • 4/6/21: In a paper led by University of Pittsburgh collaborator Elizabeth Schlenk, we report findings from a physical activity intervention for osteoarthritis, where those who perceived support for physical activity tended to have greater improvements in daily minutes of physical activity than those with no perceived physical activity support (Schlenk, Sereika, Martire, & Shi, Geriatric Nursing).
  • 1/16/21: Congratulations to Ruixue Zhaoyang who has published a paper based on findings from her R03-funded analysis of data from the Einstein Aging Study, entitled Features of daily social interactions that discriminate between older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment. This paper will be published in The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences (Zhaoyang, Sliwinski, Martire, Katz, & Scott).
  • 12/17/20: In a paper led by Christina Marini and co-authored by current and former lab members, we show that negative effects of high-trait rumination on sleep quality are attenuated for older adults who report high, stable levels of support from their spouses. This is the first paper using data from the longitudinal Transitions study and will be published in The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences (Marini, Wilson, Nah, Martire, & Sliwinski).
  • 12/1/20: In collaboration with the Editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, Lynn published a paper describing a special section of articles on COVID-19 and its implications for the study of psychological aging (Martire & Isaacowitz).
  • 9/23/20: Lynn gave a talk, “Close Relationships for Late Life Health”, in the Center for Healthy Aging's Colloquium Series, which is available to view on C-Net.
  • 6/10/20:  In our continued research on daily pain experiences, we show that people with more negative thoughts about pain in the morning are less physically active, and more sedentary, throughout the day. These findings will be published in the journal Pain (Zhaoyang, Martire & Darnall).
    • ​An article published in Psychology Today (August, 2020) highlighted these findings: The Domino Effect of Daily Pain Catastrophizing​.
  • 3/25/20:  Congratulations to Suyoung Nah, who took the lead on a paper to  be published in the Journal of Aging and Health. In this paper Suyoung showed that spouses with lower confidence in patients’ pain management experienced more negative affect on days when patients’ pain was greater than usual (Nah, Martire & Zhaoyang).
  • 2/15/20: We received the exciting news that a new 5-year study has been funded by the National Institute on Aging. This collaborative project with Dr. Harry Reis (University of Rochester) will examine the diverging effects of closeness in older adults with chronic low back pain and their spousal caregivers.
  • 2/7/2020: In a paper to be published in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences we used data from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project to show that having more friend confidants or closer connections with friend confidants predicted greater marital quality for wives and husbands five years later. In contrast, the role of family confidants was more complex: more family confidants of both spouses predicted greater marital quality for wives, but husbands reported worse marital quality if wives reported having closer connections with their own family confidants (Zhaoyang & Martire).
  • 12/18/2019: Congratulations to Suyoung Nah who passed her Qualifying Exam for the doctoral program!
  • 12/11/2019: Congratulations to Ashley Tate who passed her Comprehensive Exam and is now "ABD" (All But Dissertation)!
  • 11/16/2019: Lynn Martire joined a group of colleagues in publishing a report on family caregiving to older adults in the Annual Review of Psychology. This paper reviews and synthesizes the literature on the impact of caregiving and intervention strategies for supporting caregivers (Schulz, Beach, Czaja, Martire & Monin).
  • 11/16/2019:  Our lab research was well represented at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Austin, with a paper presentation by Ruixue Zhaoyang and poster presentations by Suyoung Nah, Ashley Tate, Christina Marini and Stephanie Wilson.
  • 10/4/2019: Lynn Martire gave an invited talk to the Social-Health group of Stony Brook University's Department of Psychology.
  • 8/27/2019:  Christina Marini and Stephanie Wilson, former members of the lab, led the development of a report to be published in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. Extending previous research on invisible support, this paper shows that spouses experience more negative affect in response to providing arthritis patients with extra care and attention when their support is not recognized (i.e., reported) by patients (Marini, Wilson, Tate, Martire & Franks).
  • 8/5/2019:  In a paper to be published in the journal Pain, we show that  daily pain catastrophizing by older individuals with knee osteoarthritis leads to punishing responses from the spouse, which in turn contribute to greater pain catastrophizing (Martire, Zhaoyang, Marini, Nah & Darnall).
  • 7/25/2019:  A recent focus of lab members is on the social resources that may help military veterans confront and rework their wartime memories later in life in the context of stressors associated with normative aging. Christina Marini led the development of a paper reviewing relevant areas of research focused on aging Vietnam veterans, who represent 64% of  veterans over the age of 65. This paper will be published in the journal Gerontology (Marini, Fiori, Wilmoth, Pless Kaiser, & Martire).
  • 7/22/2019: In a paper to be published in Psychology and Aging, we use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to show that adults who experience maternal childhood abuse and neglect report less closeness with their aging mother and poorer psychological well-being (Kong & Martire).
  • 1/31/2019: Congratulations to Ruixue Zhaoyang, who led a paper reporting that the quality of daily social interactions predicts fewer physical symptoms for older adults, whereas the frequency of social interactions predicts less severe physical symptoms for younger adults. This collaborative project with the Sliwinski Lab focused on 173 adults between the ages of 20 and 79 and will be published in Psychology and Health (Zhaoyang, Sliwinski, Martire, & Smyth).
  • 1/1/2019: Congratulations to Christina Marini, who will begin an Assistant Professor position in September, in the Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University!
  • 12/18/18: Ashley Tate (nee Stanford) passed her Qualifying Exam and is now officially a candidate for the doctoral degree.
  • 11/20/18:  Our lab research was well represented at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Boston, with paper presentations by current lab members Suyoung Nah and Ashley Stanford and former lab members Jooyoung Kong and Stephanie Wilson.
  • 11/9/18: Congratulations to Ashley Stanford, whose first lead-author paper has been accepted for publication in Personal Relationships. This paper stems in part from Ashley's masters thesis findings that pain patients who feel that their spouse understands their pain report, and have spouses who report, greater marital satisfaction (Stanford, Martire & Zhaoyang).
  • 9/21/18: Congratulations to Christina Marini, who used data from the Daily Assessment in Arthritis Study to show that spouses of chronic pain patients who are critical of patients’ coping efforts are angrier after getting an unrefreshing night of sleep, and that such anger predicts greater marital tension throughout the rest of the day. This paper was accepted for publication in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences (Marini, Martire, Jones, Zhaoyang & Buxton).
  • 8/27/18: In a paper to be published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, we report that time spent in sedentary behavior predicts less pain for arthritis patients but worse affect at the end of that day, above and beyond the effects of physical activity, as well as greater negative affect the next morning (Zhaoyang & Martire).
  • 7/9/18:  A brief report to be published in Families, Systems and Health reports on findings from our pilot study, Couples Daily Lives (CoDL), which was funded by Penn State's Social Science Research Institute and led by Stephanie Wilson. We report on the feasibility and challenges of a  multi-method, in-home assessment linking spousal cardiovascular changes (HF-HRV) to patient pain expression during couples’ everyday interactions (Wilson, Martire, & Graham-Engeland).
  • 6/5/18: In a paper to be published in a Special Issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, we use data from the study of Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) to show that verbal and physical abuse in childhood  negatively affects  family relationships in later adulthood (i.e., less perceived support, more perceived strain, less frequent contact, and fewer hours of providing instrumental support). We also show that less perceived support and more family strain mediate the associations between childhood abuse and psychological functioning (Kong, Moorman, Martire and Almeida).
  • 6/2/2018: Lynn Martire gave a keynote address for her alma mater, Kent State University Department of Psychological Sciences, in celebration of their 50th anniversary.
  • 3/31/18: Wave 4 of the Transitions study is complete, with 116 participants interviewed (89% of the original sample). This local longitudinal study of older adults features annual interviews and online surveys every 6 months.
  • 1/8/18:  In a collaborative project with the Sliwinski Lab we used a sample of 173 adults between the ages of 20 and 79 years to show that  a curvilinear relationship best characterized age differences in both positive and negative ratings of daily social interaction quality, with middle-aged adults reporting the lowest positive ratings and older adults reporting the lowest negative ratings among all ages. These findings will be published in Psychology and Aging (Zhaoyang, Sliwinski, Martire and Smyth).
  • 1/1/18: Congratulations to Jooyoung Kong, who will begin an Assistant Professor position in August, in the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison!
  • 12/12/17: In a paper to be published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, we report that on days when spouses overestimate arthritis patients' pain, patients enjoy marital interactions more but spouses experience greater marital tension (Wilson, Martire and Zhaoyang).
  • 12/5/17: Congratulations to Ashley Stanford, who received her master's degree in HDFS. Ashley's thesis is entitled "A Stepped Approach to Examine the Dyadic Influence of Pain Communication on the Psychosocial Adjustment of Knee Osteoarthritis Patients and their Spouses."
  • 11/17/17: In collaboration with the Couples Coping with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus study (M. Stephens, P.I.), we show that individuals with Type 2 diabetes or knee arthritis have more severe symptoms on days with more marital tension, due in part to their greater negative affect on those days. These findings will be published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine (Martire, Hemphill, Zhaoyang, Stephens, Franks, and Stanford).
  • 11/6/17: Congratulations to Ruixue Zhaoyang on her forthcoming publication in the Journal of Family Psychology. In this paper we examined the simultaneous influences of two ways of communicating arthritis-related concerns with the partner—disclosure and holding back.  A higher initial level of holding back was associated with decreased marital satisfaction for both partners, as well as increased depressive symptoms for spouses over one year.  Increases in disclosure were associated with increases in marital satisfaction for both partners (Zhaoyang, Martire, and Stanford).
  • 8/1/17: Welcome to new lab members Suyoung Nah, Christina Marini, and Jooyoung Kong. Suyoung is a first-year HDFS graduate student. Christina and Jooyoung are postdoctoral fellows in the Pathways T32 training program.
  • 2/10/17: A paper led by Stephanie Wilson that will be published in Psychological Science focuses on a novel pattern in everyday interactions--daily spouse responsiveness.  Using  multilevel latent-variable growth models, we find that knee OA patients whose spouses are more empathically responsive to their daily pain expression have better physical function over 18 months  (Wilson, Martire, and Sliwinski).
  • 1/8/17: Welcome to Lisa Rosario, a senior in General Biology, who has joined the lab as a research assistant!
  • 12/17/16: Congratulations to Ruixue Zhaoyang on her forthcoming publication in Health Psychology. In this paper we show that knee OA patients' morning report of their self-efficacy for being physically active in the day ahead is associated with more steps and moderate-intensity activity that day (Zhaoyang, Martire, and Sliwinski).
  • 11/19/16: Ashley Stanford presented her work testing an actor-partner model in pain communication during a paper session at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, in New Orleans.
  • 10/7/16: Enrollment for the Transitions study has concluded, with a total of 131 participants recruited and interviewed since April of 2016. This local longitudinal study of older adults features annual interviews and online surveys every 6 months.
  • 10/1/16: Congratulations to two former postdocs, Judith Gere and Rachel Hemphill, on recent publications. Judith's paper, "The effects of lack of joint goal planning on divorce over 10 Years" (Gere, Almeida, and Martire) was recently accepted for publication in PLoS One. Rachel's paper, "Spouse confidence and physical function among adults with osteoarthritis: The mediating role of spouse responses to pain" (Hemphill, Martire, Polenick, and Stephens) was published in the October issue of Health Psychology.
  • 9/15/16: Lynn Martire and Vicki Helgeson (Carnegie Mellon University) have a paper in press for a special issue on close relationships and health to be published in American Psychologist, entitled "Close relationships and the management of chronic illness: Associations and interventions."
  • 8/22/16: Welcome to Cal Williams, a Senior in HDFS who has joined the lab as a research assistant!
  • 1/19/16:  Our findings regarding genetic influences on daily knee pain variability and activity induced pain received national  media attention:  http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/ps-gik011916.php
  • 1/4/16:  Welcome to Dr. Ruixue Zhaoyang, who has joined the Center for Healthy Aging as a Postdoctoral Fellow!
  • 12/18/15:  Congratulations to Stephanie Wilson, who successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Associations between Daily Pain Communication and Physical Health for Chronic Pain Patients and their Spouses."  Stephanie is taking a Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, Director of Ohio State University's Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research.
  • 11/18/15: The lab attended the Gerontological Society of America conference in Orlando, Florida where Stephanie presented a poster, Rachel presented a paper, and Lynn was the Discussant for a symposium.
  • 08/01/15:  Rachel Hemphill has taken a position as Program Officer at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Congratulations, Rachel!
  • 05/09/15: Emily and Megan graduated! Emily earned her BS with honors in HDFS, and Megan earned her BS with honors in Biobehavioral Health. 
  • 05/08/15:  Lynn Martire has been promoted to Full Professor of Human Development and Family Studies.  Congratulations, Lynn!
  • 04/29/15: Stephanie Wilson successfully completed her dissertation proposal defense!
  • 04/14/15: Megan Cass completed her honors thesis project, a review paper entitled" Couple Functioning and Cardiovascular Health: Current Approaches and Findings"!
  • 04/14/15: Emily Lowry completed her honors thesis project, a review paper entitled "The Effect of Depression on Cancer Progression and Mortality Among Adults"!
  • 02/28/15: Lynn Martire presented some of her work in a symposium at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in Long Beach, CA.
  • 01/28/15: Congratulations, Stephanie, on receiving the Penn State Alumni Association Dissertation Award! 
  • 11/09/14: The lab attended the Gerontological Society of America conference in Washington, D.C., where Stephanie chaired a symposium, Stephanie and Rachel presented their research, and Lynn served as an invited discussant.
  • 09/24/14: Rachel Hemphill gave a poster presentation at Penn State's Annual Postdoctoral Research Exhibition.
  • 08/07/14: Stephanie Wilson was awarded the Joseph and Jean Britton Graduate Fellowship! Congratulations, Stephanie!