About Us

The Columbia Couples Lab seeks to understand dyadic processes, especially those that are evoked when dyad members are facing stressful experiences. We look not only at romantic couples, but also at friends, unacquainted partners, roommates, and family relationships. Our lab also has a research focus on health-behavior, primarily looking at how social support can assist health-related behavior change, physiological arousal, and self-regulation. We use both lab-based experimental studies and naturalistic, longitudinal studies of daily experiences, as well as statistical models suitable for the study of change processes in individuals and dyads, both between and within persons. Overall, we look at how people support each other both effectively and ineffectively. We want to learn how to maximize the effectiveness of supportive behaviors.