creator Pieczynski, Jessica advisor Bach, Patricia Research has found emotional expression is related to relationship satisfaction and cardiac health. The association between emotional expression and these outcomes within the context of couple interactions has not been studied. This study examined the role that positive and negative affect have on the relationship satisfaction and cardiac health of couples where one individual has a cardiac illness. Forty four couples were enrolled in the study and emotional expression was coded using naïve raters. The use of naïve raters was found to be reliable for measuring general emotional constructs, but not specific emotions. The results indicated that Empathic Engagement was associated with cardiac patient mental health and physical health, but did not significantly mediate the association between relationship satisfaction and mental health. Partners’ expression of Hostility and Affection were associated with patients’ relationship satisfaction. These results underscore the importance of targeting couples communication for cardiac interventions. Submitted by Dana Lamparello (dlampare@iit.edu) on 2012-03-14T21:20:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Official Final Masters Thesis with revisions.pdf: 370376 bytes, checksum: be4a4692a2d3a702ecec6e0f89a6121b (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2012-03-14T21:20:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Official Final Masters Thesis with revisions.pdf: 370376 bytes, checksum: be4a4692a2d3a702ecec6e0f89a6121b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12 M.S. in Psychology, December 2011 2011-12-12 2011-12 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/2629 en Thesis born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access PSYCH / Institute of Psychology Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department