Social Affect Regulation and Physical Affection Between Married Partners: An Experimental Examination of the Stress-Buffering Effect of Spousal Touch and the Role of Adult Attachment

Background: When studying how humans regulate their affect, it is important to recognize that affect regulation does not occur in a vacuum. As humans are an inherently social species, affect plays a crucial evolutionary role in social behavior, and social behavior likewise assumes an important role in affect and affect regulation. Emotion researchers are increasingly interested the specific ways people help to regulate and dysregulate one another’s affect, though experimental examinations of the extant models and theory are relatively few.