Quarreling After a Sleepless Night: Preliminary Evidence of the Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Interpersonal Conflict

Patricia Cernadas Curotto; Virginie Sterpenich; David Sander; Nicolas Favez; Ulrike Rimmele; Olga Klimecki

doi:10.1007/s42761-021-00076-4

Quarreling After a Sleepless Night: Preliminary Evidence of the Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Interpersonal Conflict

Affect Sci. 2022;3(2):341-352. doi: 10.1007/s42761-021-00076-4. Epub 2021 Dec 7.

Authors

Patricia Cernadas Curotto^{1

2}, Virginie Sterpenich^{1

3}, David Sander^{1

2}, Nicolas Favez⁴, Ulrike Rimmele^{3

5

6}, Olga Klimecki^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Campus Biotech, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland.
² Laboratory for the study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression (E3 Lab), Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, 1205 Switzerland.
³ Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Campus Biotech, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland.
⁴ Unité de Psychologie Clinique des Relations Interpersonnelles, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, 1205 Switzerland.
⁵ Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland.
⁶ Emotion and Memory Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland.
⁷ Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01187 Dresden, Germany.

Abstract

Although poor sleep has been found to correlate with deteriorations in romantic relationships, its causal impact on interpersonal conflict has not previously been studied. Therefore, 30 couples were randomly assigned to either a single night of total sleep deprivation or a night of normal sleep to test the effects of sleep deprivation on couples' conflict. After the experimental night, all participants discussed a topic of recurrent conflict for 15 min. We collected pre- and post-conflict measures of cortisol, self-reports of feelings, and satisfaction with the conflictual discussion. Multilevel analyses revealed higher cortisol levels during conflict and less positive affect prior to and after the conflict for sleep-deprived couples compared to couples in the control condition. These findings provide initial evidence for a causal negative impact of sleep deprivation on couples' conflicts.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00076-4.

Keywords: Close relationships; Cortisol; Couple conflict; Emotions; Positive affect.