Science has found that a happier life is a healthier life. When people experience more positive emotion, they tend to enjoy better cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune function and even a longer life.
But a new study suggests that experiencing positive feelings with others may be even more powerful for our health. In this research, this kind of “positive emotional resonance” or “shared positivity” within couples had benefits beyond what their personal happiness could provide.
“Sharing in positive emotions with your relationship partner is really meaningful,” says the lead author of the study, Tomiko Yoneda of the University of California, Davis. “Even those small moments of joy or social connection can have a supportive effect on your physiology and, basically, support better health as we age.”
How sharing positivity affects us
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In this study, 321 couples in Germany and Canada (642 people in total, all 56 to 89 years old) reported on how satisfied they were with their relationship before monitoring their emotions for a week. Five to seven times per day, participants were prompted to report (separately, but at the same time as their partners) how happy, relaxed, and interested they were feeling in that moment and if they were with their partner or not. Couples who were together and both experiencing stronger-than-average positive feelings were considered to be experiencing emotional resonance, which occurred about 38% of the time couples were in each other’s presence.
At each report time, participants also took a sample of their saliva and froze it, so researchers could later test the samples for cortisol—a hormone released during stress. And they reported whether they’d recently taken medications; consumed food, alcohol, or caffeine; or smoked, taken a cold shower, brushed their teeth, or engaged in physical activity—all of which can impact cortisol levels.
This resulted in a rich data set, including 23,931 separate measurements of feelings and cortisol levels, which Yoneda and her team then analyzed. They found that whenever couples experienced emotional resonance, their cortisol level was lower than their own personal norm for that time of day, and lower than when they experienced positive emotion alone. This was true regardless of their age, gender, average level of happiness, and overall relationship satisfaction.
“The effect of co-experienced positive emotions was over and beyond the effect of individually experienced emotions,” says Yoneda. “Individually experienced positive emotions are linked with lower cortisol, but even more so when those positive emotions are shared with their relationship partner.”
When looking at the three emotions individually, Yoneda and her team found that couples co-experienced happiness and relaxation more than shared interest, and that sharing interest alone was not tied to lower cortisol. Yoneda is not sure why that would be, but it’s possible that interest is more arousing or activating than the other two emotions, she says, which might cancel out its relaxing effects.
She also looked at how the way couples felt and reacted at one moment affected what happened afterward. She found that lower cortisol reactions tended to last later in the day, despite people not being together. Also, shared positivity at one time led to lower cortisol levels later, but the reverse was not true. This means that sharing positivity could help drive a healthier cortisol response overall, says Yoneda.
“Chronically elevated cortisol is associated with all kinds of negative health outcomes. So, if there’s something helping to diminish cortisol, that can be also helpful for our health,” she says.
One surprising finding in the study was that this effect on cortisol still occurred for people who were less satisfied with their relationship. Yoneda was a bit surprised by the finding, but also pleased, as it may mean shared positivity helps even stressed couples.
“I would’ve expected this effect to be stronger in couples reporting higher relationship satisfaction,” she said. “But we saw these effects across the board, which means those calming, health-related effects of shared positive emotions aren’t just limited to the happiest couples.”
Increasing shared positivity might be a good goal for us all
This is not the first study to find that positivity resonance is good for our well-being. For example, one prior study found that couples who demonstrated positivity resonance through their words, non-verbal gestures, and more while discussing the ups and downs in their relationship tended to live significantly longer than those who had fewer shared positivity moments.
But Yoneda’s work contributes to this research by showing how positivity resonance might play out in real life, rather than in a lab. It also may explain why having warm relationships over time has been found to contribute to longevity.
“This could be one mechanism: Sharing in positive emotions with someone close to you is decreasing your physiological response [to stress],” she says. “There might be some coping mechanisms there, some co-regulation occurring, that’s contributing to healthier aging.”
Though Yoneda and her team studied only cohabitating couples for practical reasons—the couples would naturally have frequent contact and be able to give saliva samples easily—she hopes to study how shared positivity between any two people could provide health benefits.
“It’d be great to see how this effect happens in friendships or work colleagues or family members or even strangers,” says Yoneda. “This is speculative, but these effects might generalize across other relationships and social connections.”
If her findings hold in those circumstances, it could have broader implications, suggesting that we look for opportunities to share positive emotions in all of our relationships. Meanwhile, it probably makes sense to at least try to share more positivity with anyone we love—for their sake and for ours.
“Leaning into those shared moments of connection, of positive emotions and happiness, can have small but meaningful effects, and those effects probably do accumulate over time,” says Yoneda.
