Romantic couples from the community will be randomly assigned to one of two arms: mindfulness vs. active control. Thus, both partners will either complete the mindfulness intervention (developed to increase attention towards and acceptance of current experiences) or a relaxation-based active treatment comparison intervention (developed to parallel the structure of the mindfulness intervention without the attention towards or acceptance of present experiences). Both interventions will be completed on a smart-phone for 14 days using identical intervention activities as our existing published research, which demonstrated that the mindfulness intervention reduced stress reactivity and improved daily well-being. After the 14-day period, couples will attend a lab visit and provide multi-method relationship quality data.
The overarching aim of this proposal is to experimentally test whether a mindfulness intervention improves relationship quality. Romantic couples from the community will be randomly assigned to one of two arms: mindfulness vs. active control. Both interventions will be completed on a smart-phone for 14 days using identical intervention activities as our existing published research. After the 14-day period, couples will attend a lab visit and provide relationship quality data.