8 - Affectionate Communication and Physical Health

Summary

Perhaps the most significant research spawned by the author’s book Communicating Affection (2006) has focused on the connections between affectionate behavior and physical health. In multiple ways, this scholarship has demonstrated a fundamental claim of affection exchange theory that giving and receiving affection is good for you. This chapter explores the health effects and correlates of affectionate behavior across a range of physical systems and outcomes, including the cardiovascular and endocrine systems, allergy and immunology, metabolism, infection, and pain. Although the vast majority of research shows a positive relationship between affectionate communication and physical health, this chapter concludes with a discussion of ways in which affectionate behavior can actually impede health.