In the Relationships and Physiology (RAP) lab, we focus on stress and psychophysiology in social relationships. Our lab works within the Department of  Psychology and the College of Arts and Sciences here at OU. 
We examine real-time, dynamic interactions between partners with a focus on cardiovascular stress reactivity and other physiological markers. By studying
in-the-moment interactions, we aim to uncover how stress within relationships affects long-term health outcomes, deepening our understanding of the powerful connection between interpersonal dynamics and physiological well-being.

What We Do

How does your body respond to emotional, social stressors? How did you and your close others respond to the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic? When your romantic partner has a stoic expression after coming home from work, how do you respond? Our interdisciplinary, multi-method program of research seeks to better understand how people navigate and are influenced by interactions with strangers, close friends, and romantic partners. Specifically, we examine how responses to stressors (both internal and external to the relationship) influence online physiological, interpersonal, and affective responses, and downstream decisions, behaviors, and health. We use multiple theories to generate hypotheses, including the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat, the extended process model of emotion regulation, constructed emotion theory, adult attachment, and interdependence theory. To answer research questions, we rely on multiple methods, including cardiovascular physiological measures, behavioral coding, and daily diaries. We are also strong proponents of “immersive” social paradigms wherein we study relationship processes during live social interactions: We have used extensive, 2–4-hour, lab-based paradigms to collect psychophysiological data on 900+ dyads (1800+ individuals). Together, this body of work helps bring the social back into social psychology by directly studying interactions as they occur as well as help us better understand how relationships shape are mental and physical health.