“Not now, I had a long day” : social withdrawal as a coping strategy for managing stress

On days when people experience more stress outside of their relationship (e.g., work stress, transportation problems), they tend to experience negative mood states, which often spillover into interactions with their partner and increase the likelihood of conflict within the relationship. Within the stress literature, it has been argued that engaging in social withdrawal (i.e., withdrawing from social interaction with one’s partner) after a stressful day may serve to reduce stress spillover effects by limiting expressions of negativity within the relationship. Yet, although some indirect evidence suggests that social withdrawal may be beneficial for relationship well-being, to date research has not directly examined whether the use of social withdrawal as a coping response may buffer the relationship from the harmful effects of stress. Moreover, prior work has focused on the potential immediate effects of social withdrawal, and not the long-term consequences of using this strategy. For instance, in addition to reducing expressions of negativity, the use of social withdrawal as a coping strategy may limit opportunities for couples to engage in positive exchanges that may help maintain their relationship happiness over time. Therefore, the current project presents two studies examining the immediate and long-term effects of engaging in social withdrawal on high stress days for couples’ relationship well-being. The first study utilized daily diary data to examine whether the use of social withdrawal may moderate the link between daily stress and same-day relationship outcomes. It was predicted that on days in which individuals faced greater stress and engaged in social withdrawal, both they and their partner would report fewer expressions of negativity enacted by the stressed individual toward the partner, fewer positive exchanges within the relationship, and greater relationship satisfaction compared to days in which individuals faced greater stress but did not engage in social withdrawal (Study 1). Contrary to hypotheses, however, there was no support for notion that social withdrawal may protect relationships from the negative implications of individuals’ stress. The second study aimed to replicate and extend Study 1 by incorporating a focus on the potential long-term effects of social withdrawal. Again, and contrary to hypotheses, social withdrawal failed to buffer the immediate negative effects of stress. In addition, Study 2 examined whether couple members’ tendency to use social withdrawal as a coping strategy for managing stress was associated with changes in their relationship satisfaction over time. A curvilinear association was expected, such that when individuals reported using this coping strategy either too little or too often, both individuals and their partners would experience steeper declines in their relationship satisfaction over time. In contrast to predictions, as individuals’ tendency to engage in social withdrawal on high stress days increased from low to moderate, their partners experienced steeper declines in their satisfaction over time; however, the harmful effects of this strategy for partners’ satisfaction were reduced as individuals’ tendency to engage in social withdrawal on high stress days increased from moderate to high. Taken together, these results suggest that social withdrawal may not be as beneficial for limiting stress spillover as previous research has suggested.