Must Read: Positive Social Support From Spouse Have Negative Consequences?

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A recent study by a team of researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York found that offering help to one's spouse on what is believed to be positive support could have negative physiological effects on them. The researchers recruited 65 married couples and then made them participate in two interactions in which each spouse was asked to select a topic of discussion.

They picked topics about an external stressor to their marriage such as poor physical fitness, the desire to get a new job and many more. The spouses were made to separately complete questions about their appraisals and expectations of their partner's responsiveness during the discussion, before and after the interactions.

At the beginning of the study and after each discussion, the researchers collected saliva samples from the participants to check for cortisol - a hormone that regulates stress in the body. The most significant finding the researchers made was that: Observable behaviors when support was offered and received in discussions of wives' stressors were related to wives' perceptions of their husbands' responsiveness and wives' changes in cortisol.

Simply put, they found that cortisol was only significantly affected in wives but not in their husbands, and only in wives' discussions, according to Science Daily. "For one, we did find that when husbands showed more positive behaviors while they were giving support, wives' cortisol actually went down.

"Interestingly, we found that when wives showed more negative behavior while their partner was giving them support, their cortisol also went down," former Binghamton University student who published the findings in her dissertation, Hayley Fivecoat said. She added that the findings were not expected as when wives displayed more positive behavior while they were receiving support, their cortisol rises, signifying more physiological arousal.

Although communication skills are usually the main focus of many clinical studies, the findings of the current study indicate that skill in delivering and receiving social support is not always linked to actual reductions in cortisol. The researchers noted that it does not also increase in perceived responsiveness of partners.

They said more positive behaviors may even have unintended negative consequences and classically defined negative behaviors can sometimes have positive effects. Clinicians, in order to help couples support each other, may work together with couples so as to identify the ways which the couples prefer to be supported, which will in capitalize on the positive effects of perceived partner responsiveness on relationships, according to Eurekalert.

The researchers believe that these may be a more fruitful approach compared to advocating for more general positive and negative communication behaviors in both offering and receiving support. However, the study authors plan on investigating further into the data and publishing more findings in the future.