Mindfulness and Romantic Relationship Quality

Mindfulness and Romantic Relationship Quality

The overarching aim of this proposal is to experimentally test whether a mindfulness intervention improves relationship quality. Romantic couples from the community will be randomly assigned to one of two arms: mindfulness vs. active control. Both interventions will be completed on a smart-phone for 14 days using identical intervention activities as our existing published research. After the 14-day period, couples will attend a lab visit and provide relationship quality data.

Romantic couples from the community will be randomly assigned to one of two arms: mindfulness vs. active control. Thus, both partners will either complete the mindfulness intervention (developed to increase attention towards and acceptance of current experiences) or a relaxation-based active treatment comparison intervention (developed to parallel the structure of the mindfulness intervention without the attention towards or acceptance of present experiences). Both interventions will be completed on a smart-phone for 14 days using identical intervention activities as our existing published research, which demonstrated that the mindfulness intervention reduced stress reactivity and improved daily well-being. After the 14-day period, couples will attend a lab visit and provide multi-method relationship quality data.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Couples living together for at least 2 years
• Both partners must be fluent in English
• Both partners cannot already engage in regular systematic mind-body practice (>2 times per week).
• Both partners must have daily access to an internet-enabled smartphone to complete the intervention

Exclusion Criteria:

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