Table 4.

Spouses’ Time Alone and Time Together as Moderators of the Associations between Wife Cortisol and Husband Cortisol (Physiological Synchrony) Accounting for Cortisol’s Diurnal Rhythm and Health Control Variables

Fixed effect	Coefficient	t	Coefficient	t	Model comparison test^a
	Wives		Husbands
Model 1.					χ² (df = 4) = 0.65
Spousal cortisol	0.166	2.51^*	0.245	3.72^**
Proportion of time alone	−0.136	−0.90	−0.009	−0.06
Model 2.					χ² (df = 4) = 8.52^†
Spousal cortisol	0.160	2.37^*	0.258	4.06^**
Proportion of time with spouse	0.035	0.22	0.496	3.46^**
Model 3.					χ² (df = 8) = 10.19
Spousal cortisol	0.171	2.53^*	0.268	4.27^**
Proportion of time with spouse	0.084	0.50	0.395	2.36^*
Proportion of time with others (excluding spouse)	0.229	1.19	−0.154	−1.19

Note. Results are based on 47 wife-husband dyads. Models retain Level 1 predictors and Level 3 health control variables included in the synchrony model shown in Table 3. Synchrony intercept reflects the association between wife cortisol and husband cortisol levels over the two days of testing. Models were tested independently.

Improvement in model specification when moderators added to cortisol intercept (not shown) and synchrony intercept parameters in the model in Table 2.

^†

p ≤ .10.

p ≤ .05.

^**

p ≤ .01.