Relational Impacts of Capitalization in Early Parenthood

Abstract

Relationship difficulties are common during the transition to parenthood and may persist for years. Strategies that enhance couples’ daily relational experiences early in the parenting years may serve a protective role. In general, engaging in a capitalization attempt (i.e., sharing personal good news) with one’s romantic partner and perceiving the partner to be responsive are associated with better relationship outcomes among committed couples. However, it is unknown whether these relational benefits extend to the early parenting years or to other relational domains such as coparenting, which plays a central role in family functioning. The current study examined same-day associations between couples’ capitalization process and relationship closeness and perceived coparenting support in a dyadic context during the first year of parenthood. A subsample of primarily non-Hispanic White co-resident mixed gender couples who participated in a randomized controlled trial of a transition to parenthood program (N = 141) completed daily diaries at 10 months postpartum for 8 consecutive days. On days when mothers shared, both partners reported greater closeness. On days when fathers shared, mothers reported greater closeness and perceived coparenting support. Furthermore, perceived partner responsiveness was associated with greater closeness for both partners and greater coparenting support for fathers. Fathers also perceived greater closeness and coparenting support on days when mothers shared about the child. Findings highlight the potential benefits of capitalization in early parenthood for both closeness and perceived coparenting support and suggest that capitalization may be a low cost, high yield strategy for enhancing new parents’ daily relational experiences.

Relational Impacts of Capitalization among New Parents

The transition to parenthood is a normative, yet stressful, life transition for many couples (Doss & Rhoades, 2017). Although some couples fare relatively well after the birth of the first child (Holmes et al., 2013), many experience sudden declines in relationship satisfaction that can persist through the early parenting years (Doss et al., 2009; Mitnick et al., 2009). Within the first year postpartum, it is common for couples to experience deteriorations in multiple relationship domains. For example, couples fight more frequently (Kluwer & Johnson, 2007), spend less time engaging in leisure activities together (Claxton & Perry-Jenkins, 2008), and experience increased conflict related to division of labor (Kluwer et al., 2002). The couple relationship plays a central role in individual and family functioning. Those in higher quality relationships are physically heathier (Robles et al., 2014). They are also better parents (e.g., Krishnakumar & Buehler, 2008) and coparents (e.g., Le et al., 2016), which has important implications for children’s well-being (Rose et al., 2018; Pinquart & Teubert, 2010). Thus, identifying ways to promote couples’ daily relationship experiences during this period of time is an important area of inquiry.

Capitalization as a Positive Relational Process

One positive relational process that has received increasing attention within the field of relationship science is capitalization, defined as one’s effort to enhance the benefits of one’s personal good news by sharing with another person (Gable & Reis, 2010; Gable et al., 2004; Peters et al., 2018). It typically occurs between two people: “the capitalizer,” the one who shares the news with another person, and “the responder,” the one who receives the news. For many people, positive events occur more frequently than negative ones in everyday life (e.g., Gable et al., 2000), and engaging in a capitalization attempt (i.e., sharing positive experiences with another person who was not part of the event¹) fosters positive social interactions, thereby strengthening the relationship between the capitalizer and the responder (Gable & Reis, 2001). The benefits can be further enhanced when the responder reacts in an active and constructive way that conveys enthusiasm, excitement, and genuine concern about the event (Gable et al., 2004). Active-constructive responses can make the capitalizer feel understood, validated, and cared for and predict greater perceived partner responsiveness (e.g., Gabel et al., 2004). Although the responder’s particular response influences perceived partner responsiveness, according to Reis and Shaver’s (1988) model of intimacy, the perception may matter more than the actual partner response in determining the experience of the interaction and, consequently, the resulting relational benefits for the capitalizer. Thus, most research in this area focuses primarily on the effects of perceived responsiveness.

Across a wide range of relationships, including committed couples, prior work has consistently found evidence for the relational benefits of both the capitalization attempt and the perception that the attempt was received positively by the responder (see Gable & Reis, 2010; Peters et al., 2018 for reviews). In general, the mere act of sharing a positive event with another person is positively associated with feelings of closeness and intimacy (Gable et al., 2004; Lambert et al., 2013; Otto et al., 2015). Furthermore, perceiving the partner to be responsive is associated with a higher quality relationship between the capitalizer and the responder (Donato et al., 2014; Gable et al., 2004; Gable et al., 2006; Gable & Reis, 2010; Lambert et al., 2013; Logan & Cobb, 2016; Otto et al., 2015).

Positive events present important opportunities for couples to share positive moments together that accumulate “emotional capital” (Gottman, 1999), an important resource within the relationship that protects couples from future relationship threats (Feeney & Lemay, 2012; Walsh et al., 2017). Sharing personal good news requires relatively minimal effort, and individuals can be trained to be more responsive to the sharing of good news (Lambert et al., 2013; Woods et al., 2015). Among committed couples, three prior studies have examined same-day associations between capitalization and couples’ relationships, all of which suggest a relationally beneficial role of capitalization (Pagani et al., 2020; Pagani et al., 2015; Otto et al., 2015). Specifically, engaging in a capitalization attempt is associated with partners’ greater feelings of intimacy that day than on an average day (Otto et al., 2015) and greater relationship quality when the positive event was communicated explicitly (Pagani et al., 2015). Moreover, perceiving the partner to be more responsive to the capitalization attempt than usual (Otto et al., 2015) and perceiving their responses to be active and constructive (Pagani et al., 2020) are associated with better relationship outcomes. Thus, engaging in the capitalization process at the daily level during the early parenting years may also be associated with couples’ better daily relationship functioning. However, no prior study has examined whether same day associations indeed extend to couples within the first year of parenthood.

First Year of Parenthood

First-time parents commonly grapple with relatively high levels of ambient stress as they adjust to new roles and renegotiate the division of household tasks and childcare demands (e.g., Nyström, & Öhrling, 2004; Yavorsky et al., 2015). This is often accompanied by a sudden decline in couples’ romantic relationship functioning that has been shown to persist for at least four years (Doss et al., 2009). Better understanding of relationship promoting behaviors, such as the capitalization process, during the first year of parenthood may help inform prevention and early intervention programs. Moreover, it may be more useful to study such behaviors later in the postpartum period. Most infants do not develop a stable sleep pattern until six months of age (Bruni et al., 2014), and many parents are likely physically and mentally strained as a result. However, by the end of the first year postpartum, the majority of new parents are expected to have adjusted to their new “normal.” Accordingly, the latter part of the postpartum period may be an ideal window during which to investigate whether positive relational processes, such as capitalization, are linked with couple functioning, as results obtained during this period of the family life cycle may be especially informative for programs designed to support couples during the early parenting years. Thus, the current study examined whether the relational benefits of capitalization extend to couples around 10 months postpartum.

Coparenting Support

With the birth of the first baby, a new aspect of couples’ relationship emerges, namely the coparenting relationship. Coparenting is conceptually different from the romantic aspect of the couple relationship, as it involves issues directly related to parenting and caregiving. There is also empirical evidence suggesting that coparenting is a more proximal predictor of parenting and child outcomes than the quality of the couple relationship, which further supports coparenting as a distinct aspect of couples’ relationship (Baril et al., 2007; Bonds & Gondoli, 2007; Margolin et al., 2001). Considering the novelty of the parenting and coparenting roles couples take on, coparenting may be particularly salient for couples at the time. Coparenting also plays a central role in family functioning (Feinberg 2003). Thus, when examining the relational impacts of capitalization during this critical phase of the family life cycle, it is also important to examine whether relational benefits of capitalization “spill over” to the coparenting domain for one or both members of a couple. Although previous work has conceptualized coparenting as a multidimensional construct (Feinberg 2003; van Egeren & Hawkins, 2004), the current study chose to focus on coparenting support, the extent to which partners support each other’s parenting effort. Babies experience rapid development within the first year of life, thus, it is very likely that some of the positive events in a parent’s day would be about the child. Previous work has indeed shown that parents report greater happiness during activities with children than without (Musick et al., 2016). Sharing child-related positive events with the partner during this time might be particularly relevant for couples to foster a supportive coparenting relationship because it means that the capitalizer is involved in child-rearing. It may also be particularly meaningful for the responder, as it signifies to the responder that the capitalizer values their role as a coparent and that the two members of the couple are on the same coparenting team. In addition, it might yield benefits for the couple’s romantic relationship as coparenting support has been shown to predict couples’ subsequent relationship functioning during the early parenting years both across days (Le et al., 2019) and over periods of months to years (Le et al., 2016; Schoppe-Sullivan et al., 2004).

A Dyadic Approach

Capitalization is inherently an interpersonal process and sharing positive experiences with another person fosters positive social interactions (Peters et al., 2018). Moreover, according to the self-expansion model (Aron et al., 1991), romantic partners’ identities often become intertwined through the inclusion of the other in the self. Thus, when a capitalization attempt is directed towards romantic partners, it is expected that the responder would also benefit relationally from this interactive process. To date, several studies have examined the relational impacts of capitalization on the responder, with some studies suggesting that the responder also experiences relational benefits from the process (Gosnell & Gable, 2015; Pagani et al., 2020; but also see Otto et al., 2015). Thus, it is important to take a dyadic perspective when examining relational impacts of capitalization.

Current Study

For the present study, data were collected from a subsample of new parents participating in a randomized controlled trial of a transition to parenthood program with a focus on coparenting. A dyadic daily diary design was used to examine same-day associations between the capitalization process (i.e., capitalization attempt and perceived partner responsiveness) and couples’ relationship experiences (i.e., closeness and perceived coparenting support) among new parents at 10 months postpartum. It was hypothesized that, for both mothers and fathers, (1) on days when one partner engages in capitalization (i.e., shares the most positive event with the partner), both the capitalizer (actor effect) and the responder (partner effect) would report higher levels of relationship closeness that day compared to an average day; and (2) on days when one engages in capitalization, both the capitalizer and the responder would report higher levels of relationship closeness when the capitalizer perceives the partner to be more responsive than on an average day.

Similar hypotheses were put forth for perceived coparenting support given its close relation with parents’ romantic relationship on a daily basis in the early parenting years (e.g., McDaniel et al., 2017). Specifically, for both mothers and fathers (1) on days when one partner engages in capitalization, both the capitalizer and the responder would report perceiving greater coparenting support that day; and (2) on days when one engages in capitalization, both the capitalizer and the responder would report perceiving greater coparenting support when the capitalizer perceives the partner to be more responsive than an average day. Given the salience of the baby during this phase of the couple relationship, we also examined whether the positive event shared being about the child would be associated with greater daily relational experiences beyond perceived partner responsiveness.

The current study also explored potential gender differences. Previous work on committed couples generally does not suggest gender differences in the link between the capitalization process and couples’ relationship well-being (Otto et al., 2015; Pagani et al., 2015; Pagani et al., 2020). However, given that mothers tend to take on more childcare postpartum (Yavorsky et al., 2015) and women seek social support more often to cope with stress (Tamres et al., 2002), they may be especially likely to benefit from the capitalization process during this period of time. On the other hand, it is also possible that women are so burdened by the inequities in the division of childcare responsibilities that relational gains from sharing are trivial. Thus, we did not advance specific a priori hypotheses related to gender differences.

Method

Participants and Procedures

Participants in the current study were a subsample of co-resident heterosexual couples (N =141) who were recruited for a randomized controlled trial of Family Foundations (Feinberg et al., 2016). Family Foundations is a universal, couple-based psychoeducational transition to parenthood program designed to help couples maintain a healthy and strong coparenting relationship after the birth of their first child. It consists of five prenatal and four postnatal sessions. A subset of couples were randomly selected and invited to participate in a daily diary component (Feinberg et al., 2019). Within the subsample, 76 couples were assigned to the intervention condition, and 65 were assigned to the control condition, which included the provision of information about how to choose quality childcare. Study variables (i.e., daily relationship closeness, coparenting support, capitalization attempt, perceived partner responsiveness and sharing about the child) did not differ between couples in the intervention condition compared to the control condition (p > .08). Couples in the current study were assessed consecutively for 8 days at 10 months postpartum. Every evening, mothers and fathers were interviewed separately in a room by themselves over the phone at times that were convenient for them. Couples on average provided data for 7.89 days. Mothers and fathers, respectively, provided a total of 1,114 and 1,110 days of data on daily relationship closeness and coparenting support. For capitalization to occur, the event could not be experienced with the partner when it took place. Thus, all data pertaining to positive events experienced by both partners were excluded from the analyses (52 days total: 19 days for mothers and 33 days for fathers). As a result, a total of 1,067 and 1,059 days of data on capitalization attempt were included in the analyses. Mothers and fathers reported having shared the positive event with the partner on 660 and 512 of the days, respectively, resulting in mothers and fathers, on average, sharing on 4.68 and 3.63 days, respectively. The event shared was about the child on 51% of these days (339) for mothers and 44% of the days (225) for fathers, resulting in mothers and fathers, on average, sharing about the child on 2.40 and 1.60 days, respectively. At the time of the current investigation (10 months postpartum), the mean age for mothers was 30.30 years (SD = 4.18), and the mean age for fathers was 32.16 years (SD = 5.22). Participants completed an average of 15.55 years (SD = 1.59) of education, and the median family income was $87,500. The majority of couples were married (91%), and self-identified as non-Hispanic White (88%). The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at The Pennsylvania State University, and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Measures

Capitalization

Participants were asked to think about the most positive thing that had happened to them in the past 24 hours (or since they spoke with the interviewer the day before) and to rate the positivity of that event or situation on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = Not at All, 5 = Extremely). Higher scores indicate higher levels of positivity of the event being recalled. The participant’s daily capitalization attempt was assessed with the item “Did you tell your partner about this event?” (0 = No, 1 = Yes, 2 = Partner witnessed or was part of the event). For those who answered “yes,” two follow-up questions were asked. First, in line with prior studies (e.g., Otto et al., 2015), a single item (i.e., “How enthusiastic and positive was your partner’s reaction?”) was used to assess perceived partner responsiveness on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = Not at All, 5 = Extremely), with higher scores indicating higher levels of responsiveness. Second, we assessed whether the event was about the child by asking the question “Did this positive experience or event involve your child?” (1 = Yes, 0 = No).

Closeness

Two items were used to assess partners’ daily feelings of relationship closeness (i.e., “How emotionally close did you feel to your partner today?” and “How intimate or connected did you feel to your partner today?”) on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = Not at All, 5 = Extremely). Higher scores indicate higher levels of daily feelings of relationship closeness. Repeated measures correlations (Bakdash & Marusich, 2017) indicated that these two items were highly correlated within individuals at the daily level for both mothers and fathers (r_mother = .76; r_father = .70). Average Cronbach’s alpha was .91 for mothers and .89 for fathers. Thus, a composite daily closeness score was used for mothers and fathers, respectively, by averaging the scores of these two items.

Coparenting Support

A single item was used to assess the daily perceived coparenting support from the partner (i.e., “In the past 24 hours, how much did your partner support you as a parent?”) on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = Not at All, 4 = A Lot). Higher scores indicate higher levels of perceived coparenting support from the partner.

Statistical Analyses

A multilevel Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (Kenny et al., 2006) was used to examine daily associations between capitalization and the individual’s own (actor effect) and the partner’s (partner effect) relationship closeness and perceived coparenting support simultaneously using Mplus 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2017), with the analytic option “TWOLEVEL RANDOM” specified to account for dependency in the data (i.e., days nested within individuals) and allow estimation of between-person differences in intercepts and all actor and partner effects of interest. Given the relatively large number of random effects estimated, Bayes estimator was used. Default non-informative priors in Mplus were used. Models were considered to have converged when the proportional scale reduction (PSR) factor was smaller than 1.1. Convergence was further verified by inspecting trace plots and autocorrelation plots and by running additional iterations to ensure that the PSR factor did not increase (Asparouhov, T. & Muthén, 2010). Two chains were run with 50,000 iterations for each chain for models with capitalization attempt and perceived partner responsiveness as predictors, respectively. Intra- and interindividual associations among study variables were estimated using the R package rmcorr (Bakdash & Marusich, 2020) in R (R Core Team, 2019). The model that examined both partners’ daily capitalization attempt as predictors (see Figure 1) was conducted separately from the model that examined both partners’ perceived partner responsiveness and the relevance of the child as predictors (see Figure 2) because those data were contingent upon one’s first engaging in the capitalization attempt (i.e., sharing the best event of the day with the partner). The total variances of the predictor variables (i.e., capitalization attempt, perceived partner responsiveness, and child relevance of the event) as well as the outcome variables (i.e., relationship closeness and perceived coparenting support) were latently disaggregated at the between-person level and the within-person level. Same-day associations within and across partners between capitalization and relational experiences were modeled controlling for between-person differences in capitalization as well as the effects of day and the positivity of the event being shared. Random effects for all actor and partner effects of interest (associations between capitalization and relational experiences) were modeled. Intervention status was initially explored as a moderator for within-person effects that showed evidence of sufficient between-person differences (i.e., random effects). Because it was not significant, it was retained only as a control in the final models. Interdependence within dyad was accounted for by modeling covariances among the residuals of mothers’ and fathers’ relationship closeness and perceived coparenting support at both the within- and between-person levels. Gender differences were directly tested by estimating the differences in the parameter estimates of actor and partner effects of interest across gender using the model constraint function in Mplus.

Figure 1.

Conceptual model of the associations between the daily capitalization attempt and daily relationship closeness and perceived coparenting support. A dot on an arrow indicates that between-person differences in the particular effect as depicted by the path are allowed (random effect). For simplicity of presentation, the effects of positivity of the event, day, and intervention status were included in the model but not depicted.

Note. CA = Capitalization attempt.

Figure 2.

Conceptual model of the daily associations of perceived partner responsiveness and sharing about the child with daily relationship closeness and perceived coparenting support. A dot on an arrow indicates that between-person differences in the particular effect as depicted by the path are allowed (random effect). For simplicity of presentation, the effects of positivity of the event, day, and intervention status were included in the model but not depicted.

Note. PPR = Perceived partner responsiveness; CRE = Child relevance of the event.

Results

The means, standard deviations (SD), and intraclass correlations (proportion of between-person variance) for all study variables are presented in Table 1. Intra- and interindividual associations among study variables estimated using repeated measures correlations (Bakdash & Marusich, 2017) are also presented in Table 1. For each model, the first 25,000 iterations were considered as the “burn-in” phase and the second 25,000 iterations were used to evaluate model convergence and generate posterior distributions. Both models achieved convergence, as confirmed by inspection of the PSR factor (PSR < 1.1), trace plots, and autocorrelation plots (Asparouhov & Muthén, 2010). Table 2 and Table 3 present the median values of the posterior distributions of the unstandardized parameter estimates, their standard deviations, and 95% Bayesian credible intervals (CIs). Each of these Bayesian 95% CIs shows the 2.5^th and 97.5^th percentiles of the posterior distribution of each parameter. When the interval does not include zero, the parameter estimate was considered to show sufficient evidence to be credibly different from 0. As shown in Table 2 and Table 3, none of the 95% CIs of variances in within-person actor and partner effects includes zero and, thus, were retained in the final model.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for Mothers’ and Fathers’ Study Variables

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. Mothers’ closeness	–
2. Fathers’ closeness	.40***	–
3. Mothers’ PCS	.24***	.13***	–
4. Fathers’ PCS	.13***	.25***	.06	–
5. Mothers’ CA	.20***	.15***	.10**	.011	–
6. Fathers’ CA	.08*	.09**	.07*	.03	.03	–
7. Mothers’ PPR	.16***	.14***	.08	.00	–	.00	–
8. Fathers’ PPR	.17***	.18***	.06	.10*	.13*	–	.13*	–
9. Mothers’ CRE	.03	.09*	.05	.08	–	.00	.14***	−.01	–
10. Fathers’ CRE	.05	−.01	.03	−.01	.09	–	.10	.21***	.16**	–
M	3.21	3.21	3.69	3.66	.62	.48	3.53	3.55	.51	.44
SD	1.03	.97	.66	.67	.48	.50	.99	1.03	.50	.49
ICC	.48	.48	.43	.49	.39	.47	.36	.38	.15	.28

Note.

^***p < .001,

^**p < .01,

^*p < .05.

PCS = Perceived coparenting support. CA = Capitalization attempt. PPR = Perceived partner responsiveness. CRE = Child relevance of the event. Correlations between one’s CA and one’s PPR and between one’s CA and one’s CRE cannot be generated given that PPR and CRE are contingent upon one’s first engaging in a CA. ICC = Intraclass correlations.

Table 2.

Actor Partner Interdependence Model Predicting Daily Closeness and Perceived Coparenting Support from One’s Own and the Partner’s Daily Capitalization Attempt (CA)

	Closeness						Perceived Coparenting Support
	Mothers			Fathers			Mothers			Fathers
Between Level	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI
Intervention Status	−.03	.12	[−.26, .21]	−.10	.12	[−.32, .13]	−.09	.07	[−.23, .06]	.00	.08	[−.16, .16]
Actors’ CA (AE)	1.15	.30	[.55,1.74]	.84	.24	[.38, 1.30]	.29	.19	[−.10, .65]	.53	.16	[.21, .85]
Partners’ CA (PE)	.29	.25	[−.19,.77]	.36	.29	[−.21, .93]	.14	.15	[−.16, .44]	.04	.20	[−.35, .43]
Variance in the Intercept	.40	.07	[.29, .55]	.39	.06	[.28, .53]	.15	.03	[.11, .21]	.17	.03	[.13, .23]
Variance in the AE	.02	.02	[.00a, .09]	.06	.05	[.00a, .17]	.02	.02	[.00a, .08]	.02	.02	[.00a, .08]
Variance in the PE	.09	.06	[.01, .23]	.03	.03	[.00a, .12]	.07	.04	[.01, .16]	.07	.03	[.02, .15]
Within Level
Day	.02	.01	[.00a, .04]	.01	.01	[−.01, .03]	.01	.01	[−.00a, .03]	.02	.01	[.01, .04]
Positivity of the event	.07	.03	[.02, .12]	.07	.03	[.02, .12]	.05	.02	[.01, .09]	.02	.02	[−.02, .05]
Actors’ CA (AE)	.31	.06	[.18, .44]	.10	.07	[−.04, .24]	.05	.05	[−.04, .15]	.05	.05	[−.04, .15]
Partners’ CA (PE)	.15	.07	[.01, .29]	.23	.06	[.11, .35]	.11	.05	[.00 a , .21]	−.00	.05	[−.09, .09]
Residual Variance	.50	.03	[.45, .55]	.46	.02	[.41, .51]	.23	.12	[.21, .25]	.20	.01	[.18, .22]
Covariances
Mothers’ Closeness				.22	.05	[.14, .34]	.08	.03	[.03, .15]	.09	.03	[.03, .16]
Fathers’ Closeness	.19	.02	[.15, .23]				.04	.03	[−.01, .10]	.11	.03	[.06, .18]
Mothers’ Perceived Coparenting Support	.08	.01	[.06, .11]	.04	.01	[.02,.07]				.03	.02	[−.01, .07]
Fathers’ Perceived Coparenting Support	.04	.01	[.02, .06]	.07	.01	[.05, .09]	.01	.01	[−.00a, .03]

Note. Within-person actor and partner effects of interest with 95% CI not including zero are bolded. CA = Capitalization attempt. AE = Actor effect. PE = Partner effect. Estimates reported are the median values of the posterior distributions of the unstandardized parameter estimates. S.D. = the standard deviation of the posterior distribution. CI = Credible interval. Intervention status is coded 0 = control and 1 = intervention. Covariances of intercepts at the between-person level are reported in the upper diagonal under covariances, and residual covariances at the within-person level are reported in the lower diagonal.

^aThe absolute value is between 0 and .005 but was rounded to .00.

Table 3.

Actor Partner Interdependence Model Predicting Daily Closeness and Perceived Coparenting Supporting from One’s Own and the Partner’s Daily Perceived Partner Responsiveness (PPR) and Child Relevance of the Event (CRE)

	Closeness						Perceived Coparenting Support (PCS)
	Mothers			Fathers			Mothers			Fathers
Between Level	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI	Estimate	S.D.	95% CI
Intervention Status	−.03	.06	[−.15, .09]	−.05	.06	[−.16, .06]	−.04	.03	[−.10, .03]	−.00a	.04	[−.07, .07]
Actors’ PPR (AE)	.63	.13	[.37, .88]	.30	.12	[.07, .54]	.19	.07	[.06, .33]	.02	.08	[−.15, .18]
Partners’ PPR (PE)	.02	.12	[−.22, .27]	.46	.12	[.23, .70]	−.11	.07	[−.25, .02]	.29	.08	[.14, .45]
Actors’ CRE (AE)	−.94	1.00	[−3.17, .23]	−.02	.42	[−.89, .81]	.21	.40	[−.53, .95]	−.17	.29	[−.74, .42]
Partners’ CRE (PE)	−.15	.44	[−1.09, .72]	−.59	.81	[−2.25, .51]	−.04	.23	[−.50, .41]	−.32	.59	[−1.49, .50]
Variance in the Intercept	.33	.07	[.20, .48]	.33	.06	[.22, .47]	.10	.02	[.06, .15]	.14	.03	[.09, .21]
Variance in the AE of PPR	.02	.01	[.002, .05]	.02	.02	[.00a, .07]	.03	.01	[.01, .06]	.01	.01	[.001, .02]
Variance in the PE of PPR	.02	.02	[.00a, .07]	.01	.01	[.00a, .03]	.14	.03	[.09, .21]	.05	.03	[.00a, .09]
Variance in the AE of CRE	.05	.05	[.00a, .17]	.09	.06	[.01, .24]	.28	.06	[.17, .42]	.35	.07	[.24, .51]
Variance in the PE of CRE	.03	.04	[.00a, .14]	.03	.04	[.00a, .14]	.08	.03	[.04, .16]	.01	.05	[.00, .18]
Within Level
Day	.02	.01	[.00a, .05]	.02	.01	[−.00a, .04]	.01	.01	[.00a, .02]	.02	.01	[.01, .03]
Positivity of the event	.09	.03	[.03, .14]	.07	.03	[.02, .12]	.04	.02	[.01, .07]	−.00a	.02	[−.03, .03]
Actors’ PPR (AE)	.10	.05	[.01, .18]	.11	.05	[.01, .20]	.02	.03	[−.04, .08]	.05	.02	[.01, .10]
Partners’ PPR (PE)	.10	.05	[.01, .19]	.12	.04	[.04, .19]	.02	.05	[−.08, .11]	−.01	.03	[−.07, .05]
Actors’ CRE (AE)	.03	.07	[−.10, .16]	−.12	.08	[−.26, .03]	.10	.06	[−.02, .23]	−.09	.08	[−.24, .07]
Partners’ CRE (PE)	−.06	.07	[−.21, .08]	.14	.06	[.02, .27]	.03	.05	[−.06, .13]	.08	.05	[.01, .20]
Residual Variance	.47	.03	[.42, .53]	.41	.03	[.36, .47]	.06	.01	[.05, .08]	.08	.01	[.07, .10]
Covariances
Mothers’ Closeness				.16	.05	[.07, .28]	.07	.03	[.03, .14]	.03	.03	[−.03, .10]
Fathers’ Closeness	.18	.02	[.15, .22]				.04	.03	[−.00a, .10]	.09	.03	[.03, .16]
Mothers’ PCS	.05	.01	[.03, .07]	.02	.01	[.01, .04]				.02	.02	[−.01, .05]
Fathers’ PCS	.03	.01	[.01, .04]	.03	.01	[.01, .05]	.01	.00a	[.00a, .02]

Note. Within-person actor and partner effects of interest with 95% CI not including zero are bolded. PPR = Perceived partner responsiveness. CRE = Child relevance of the event. AE = Actor effect. PE = Partner effect. Estimates reported are the median values of the posterior distributions of the unstandardized parameter estimates. S.D. = the standard deviation of the posterior distribution. CI = Credible interval. Intervention status is coded 0 = control and 1 = intervention. Covariances of intercepts at the between-person level are reported in the upper diagonal under covariances, and residual covariances at the within-person level are reported in the lower diagonal.

^aThe absolute value is between 0 and .005 but was rounded to .00.

Closeness

Unstandardized estimates for relationship closeness are presented in the first six columns in Table 2 and Table 3. For the effect of capitalization attempt, a positive actor effect was found for mothers but not fathers, and the 95% CI for the gender difference in the actor effect did not include zero, indicating a gender difference (95% CI = [.02, .40]). That is, mothers, but not fathers, reported greater relationship closeness on days when they shared the most positive event of the day with their partners. Positive partner effects were found for both mothers and fathers, with no evidence of a gender difference (95% CI = [−.10, .26]). That is, for both mothers and fathers, on days when one partner shared, the other partner reported greater closeness that day.

On days when sharing occurred, for both mothers and fathers, there were positive actor and partner effects of perceived partner responsiveness, with no indication of gender differences (actor effects: 95% CI = [−.14, .12]; partner effects: 95% CI = [−.14, .10]). That is, individuals reported greater closeness on days when they perceived their partners to be more responsive to their capitalization attempt than on an average day and when their partners perceived them to be more responsive.

When the event shared was about the child, no actor effect was found for mothers or fathers. A positive partner effect was found from mothers to fathers but not vice versa, such that fathers perceived greater closeness on days when the positive event mothers shared was about the child. A gender difference in this partner effect was supported (95% CI = [.01, .40]).

Coparenting Support

Unstandardized estimates for perceived coparenting support are presented in the last six columns in Table 2 and Table 3. For the effect of capitalization attempt, no actor effect was found for mothers or fathers. A positive partner effect was found from fathers to mothers such that mothers perceived greater coparenting support on days when fathers shared the most positive event of the day. The same effect was not found from mothers to fathers, although a gender difference was not supported (95% CI = [−.25, .03]).

On days when sharing occurred, a positive actor effect of perceived partner responsiveness was found for fathers but not mothers. That is, fathers, but not mothers, perceived greater coparenting support on days when they perceived their partners to be more responsive to their capitalization attempt than on an average day. However, a gender difference in this effect was not supported (95% CI = [−.10, .04]). No partner effect was found for mothers or fathers.

When the event shared was about the child, no actor effect was found for mothers or fathers. A positive partner effect was found from mothers to fathers such that fathers perceived greater coparenting support on days when the positive event mothers shared was about the child. Although the same effect was not found from fathers to mothers, a gender difference in this partner effect was not supported (95% CI = [−.21, .08]).

Discussion

This is the first study to investigate daily associations between the capitalization process and new parents’ relational experiences during the first year of parenthood. It is also the first to extend the relational outcomes beyond the romantic aspect of couples’ relationships to include coparenting. Findings suggest that the positive link between the capitalization process and daily closeness is indeed evident for new parents during this phase of the family life cycle and that some of these associations also extend to the coparenting domain. Moreover, mothers’ sharing about the child is associated with fathers’ greater daily relational experiences in both domains.

Daily Associations between Capitalization and Closeness among New Parents

Findings from this investigation are largely consistent with prior work documenting a positive link between the capitalization process and better relational well-being among committed couples (e.g., Gosnell & Gable, 2015; Otto et al., 2015; Pagani et al., 2015; Pagani et al., 2020). Specifically, mothers felt more connected to their partners on days when they shared and both mothers and fathers felt more connected to their partners on days when their partners shared. These findings suggested the possibility of boosting new parents’ daily relational experiences as early as 10 months postpartum through promoting the capitalization process. It is notable that couples in the current study shared the best event on 50–60% of the days, which is approximately 20–30% less frequent than what was reported in other studies (e.g., Gables et al., 2004; Otto et al., 2015). Because new parents are juggling multiple roles during this period of time, they may be less attentive to positive events and/or have relatively fewer opportunities to capitalize when with their partners. Encouraging couples to share more often towards the end of the first year, when couples are likely to have adapted to their new “normal,” may ameliorate the typical declines in relationship adjustment typically seen among couples during the postpartum period.

In addition, a gender difference was observed in the actor effect. That is, although engaging in a capitalization attempt was associated with greater daily closeness for mothers, the same link was not found for fathers. Women seek social support more often than men when distressed (Tamres et al., 2002) and are likely under greater stress given that they tend to perform the majority of childcare (Yavorsky et al., 2015). Thus, having the opportunity to share with the partner may be a particularly gratifying way for women to seek emotional support from their partners at this time. Indeed, in the current study, mothers shared more often than fathers. The absence of an actor effect for fathers, however, was unexpected. Previous work has demonstrated a same-day within-person association between daily capitalization attempt and relationship intimacy among men (Otto et al., 2015). Although fathers typically perform relatively fewer childcare activities than do mothers within the first year postpartum, they also tend to be less prepared and supported in their parenting role during the transition (Deave et al., 2008). Thus, they may still feel burdened by their new roles so that relational gains from sharing are minimized. More research is needed across a variety of contexts to determine the conditions under which engaging in the capitalization attempt is associated with greater relational experience for women and men.

For both mothers and fathers, on days when they did share, both partners felt closer to the other partner when the capitalizer perceived the responder to be more responsive than usual. This is consistent with previous work showing that the relational benefits of capitalizing can be further enhanced for both partners when the responder makes the capitalizer feel understood, validated, and cared for by being responsive during the sharing (Gosnell & Gable, 2015; Otto et al., 2015; Pagani et al., 2020). It is also notable that, despite the fact that fathers did not benefit from the mere act of sharing, on days when they did engage in a capitalization attempt, like mothers, they reported greater closeness when they perceived their partners to be more responsive. Thus, fathers may still benefit from sharing when mothers are responsive. Taken together, findings from this investigation lend support to the notion that the capitalization process may be relationally beneficial for both new mothers and new fathers during the first year of parenthood.

Extension of the Relational Benefits of Capitalization

This study also highlights the importance of considering the capitalization process’s link with perceived coparenting support and the role of sharing about the child. On days when fathers shared, mothers perceived greater coparenting support. When good things happen, men are less likely to capitalize than women (Palmer et al., 2016). Thus, when fathers do capitalize, it may be especially meaningful for mothers and increase their comfort in recruiting their partners’ help with parenting. In contrast, fathers’ daily perceived coparenting support was not associated with their own daily capitalization attempt. Unlike for closeness, mothers’ daily capitalization attempt was not associated with their own or fathers’ daily perceived coparenting support. Coparenting is the aspect of the couple relationship that mainly concerns child-related issues (Feinberg, 2003), which may explain why couples’ coparenting relationships in general did not benefit much from the mere act of sharing.

On days when fathers shared, they perceived greater coparenting support when their partners reacted in a more responsive manner than usual. Although the same effect was not observed for mothers, it was not meaningfully different. According to the interpersonal process model of intimacy (Reis & Shaver, 1988), perceived partner responsiveness plays a critical role in the capitalization process. Feeling understood, validated, and cared for when capitalizing likely makes one feel more generally supported by their partner than simply having the opportunity to share personal good news with each other. This may be especially true for fathers, who tend not to receive as much support in preparation for their new parenting roles. This may explain why fathers not only felt closer to mothers on those days but also felt more supported in coparenting despite the absence of an effect for sharing itself on coparenting.

Finally, on days when the positive event mothers shared was about the child, fathers reported greater closeness and coparenting support that day. The same effects were not observed from fathers to mothers, although a meaningful gender difference was only found in the effect on closeness rather than coparenting support. Fathers may perceive mothers’ sharing about the child as “opening the gate” and encouraging and supporting their involvement as a parent and, thus, feeling more supported in coparenting. Indeed, maternal gate opening/closing has been shown to be predictive of subsequent changes in coparenting closeness within the first year of parenthood (Olsavsky et al., 2020). Fathers also reported feeling closer to mothers on days when the event shared was about the child, in addition to the mere act of sharing. Within the early years of parenthood, it is not uncommon for fathers to feel “left out” out of the parenting process (e.g., Bar-Yam et al., 1997). Thus, it may be that, when mothers share positive moments about the child with fathers, fathers feel more included in the family system and, thus, more connected to their partners. At the same time, it is important to note that, although nearly half of the positive events shared were about the child in the current sample, the average numbers of days on which mothers and fathers reported sharing about the child were still very small. This is partly due to the relatively short assessment period used to minimize participant burden. Thus, these results should be interpreted with caution, and replication is needed to increase confidence in the findings. Taken together, findings from the current study suggest that daily capitalization process may also help both new mothers and new fathers to build a more supportive coparenting relationship and that mothers’ sharing about the child may potentially be relationally beneficial for fathers.

Clinical Implications

The transition to parenthood is a challenging developmental period for many couples (Doss & Rhoades, 2017). Despite the positive intervention effects for existing transition to parenthood programs on parenting and child outcomes, the impacts of these programs on couples’ relationship functioning specifically remain relatively limited (Pedro et al., 2012; Pinquart & Teubert, 2010; Schulz et al., 2010). Moreover, for intervention programs that have yielded positive effects on couples’ global relationship functioning and coparenting, these effects do not seem to be reflected in couples’ everyday experiences (Feinberg et al., 2016; Le et al., 2019). Findings from the current study highlight the potential for capitalization to serve as a low cost, high yield intervention target to enhance daily relational experiences for first-time parents. For example, it may be valuable to educate couples about the relational benefits of the capitalization process. Moreover, in light of the findings, encouraging couples, especially fathers, to share more often with each other when good things happen, and potentially encouraging mothers to share more about the child, may be particularly helpful in potentiating couples’ daily experiences of closeness and/or coparenting support. Moreover, individuals can be taught to react to their partners’ capitalization attempt in a more responsive manner (Conoley et al., 2015; Woods et al., 2015). Given the potential added benefits for both partners when the responder is responsive, teaching couples skills to be responsive when the other partner capitalizes may also be relationally beneficial. This is important because sharing with a partner who is not responsive may offset or outweigh the benefits of sharing itself.

Limitations and Future Directions

The current study adds to the literature by examining the daily capitalization process within the first year of parenthood with respect to couples’ relational closeness and perceived coparenting support in a dyadic context. However, there are also limitations. First, because daily capitalization and relational experiences were assessed at the same time, the directionality of the effect cannot be discerned. A capitalization attempt is likely to be made near the end of the day, when couples are able to spend time talking about each person’s day. It is possible that individuals are more likely to share on days when they feel closer to their partners or perceive their partners as being more supportive in coparenting. It is also possible that these links are driven by a third variable such as stress each partner experienced that day, each partner’s daily mood, or the amount of time partners spent together. Thus, future studies may benefit from multiple assessments throughout the day to further establish the causal effects of the capitalization process within a day. Second, this study focused solely on co-resident mixed gender couples, and the majority of the couples were non-Hispanic White and relatively well-educated. Couples’ relationship functioning was also relatively high, despite variability with respect to their risk characteristics and socioeconomic status. Future studies should include more diverse samples to determine the extent to which the potential relational benefits of capitalization in early parenthood are generalizable. Third, with respect to measurement, this study relied on mothers’ and fathers’ self-report data and, thus, are subject to reporter bias. Utilizing reports from both partners on their own behavior (e.g., both mothers and fathers report on their own support provision) may be one way to attenuate shared method variance resulting from the same reporter in future studies. Finally, the majority of constructs assessed in the current study are measured with single items, and daily coparenting support was assessed on a scale ranging from 1 to 4, which may have resulted in a restricted range. Although prior daily diary studies support the validity of using single items to assess similar constructs (e.g., Laurenceau et al., 2005), future studies would benefit from using measures with multiple items. For example, the Daily Coparenting Scale (McDaniel et al., 2017) consists of multiple items of daily coparenting support with a wider scale range (e.g., 1–7) and has been validated with parents of young children.

Prior studies have found the association between perceived partner responsiveness and relationship satisfaction to be weaker among couples who have been partnered longer (Logan & Cobb, 2016). Thus, future studies should examine whether capitalization is a viable intervention target to enhance and/or maintain couples’ relationship functioning across other critical developmental stages of the family life cycle, such as when the first child transitions to the preschool years or adolescence or when the family is expecting a second child. Future studies should also consider individual (e.g., psychological well-being), relational (e.g., relationship satisfaction), and/or contextual factors (e.g., major life stressors) that may influence whether couples attempt to capitalize and the impact of the capitalization attempt and perceived partner responsiveness, as these may have important implications for the feasibility of enhancing couples’ daily relational functioning through the promotion of daily capitalization.

Conclusion

The current study adds to the couples and the transition to parenthood literature by demonstrating the relational benefits of engaging in a capitalization attempt and perceived partner responsiveness for first-time parents towards the end of the first year postpartum. Promoting the daily capitalization process among couples at this time may be a low cost, high yield intervention target to enhance couples’ daily experiences in multiple relational domains, which could lead to better parenting and child outcomes over the long run.