Close relationships can affect smoking

TUCSON, March 12 (UPI) -- Health-compromising behaviors, such as smoking or weight gain, may persist because they preserve stability in a close relationship, U.S. researchers said.

Michael J. Rohrbaugh and Varda Shoham of the University of Arizona had 25 couples discuss a health-related disagreement before and during a period of actual smoking, and then use joysticks to rate how they had felt from moment to moment -- from very positive to very negative -- while watching themselves on video.

One partner in each couple smoked despite having a heart or lung problem, and in some couples both partners were smokers.

The joystick ratings of partners in dual-smoker couples became more positive and more synchronous contingent upon lighting up -- as if they were dancing to the same emotional tune, the researchers said.

In single-smoker couples, however, both partners -- smokers and non-smokers alike -- report decreased positive emotions and less affective synchrony.

The study, published in the journal Family Process, found that while most people think of health-compromising habits like smoking as a purely individual matter of motivation or addiction, social factors beyond the smoker are important as well.