Theodore F Robles
Biographic Data
| ID | 212756 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Theodore F Robles |
| GIVEN NAMES | Theodore F |
| FAMILY NAME | Robles |
| SIGNATURE | ROBLES T F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4456-7522 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 162 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Perceived social support and treatment adherence in Chileans with Type 2 diabetes
This study aimed to determine if greater perceived social support was directly associated with better Type 2 diabetes (T2D) treatment adherence and if better T2D treatment adherence was related to lower HbA1c levels in Chilean adults with T2D. For this purpose, 200 adults were recruited from the Chilean Diabetic Association. Participants were asked to complete self-report instruments and provide a capillary blood sample to measure HbA1c. Structur…
Effects of a Brief Spiritual Intervention on Perceived Stress During Covid-19
There is an increased need for self-administered coping strategies to combat the threat to mental health posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine. The current study investigated the feasibility of using spiritual connection as a way of coping with chronic stress emerging from the global pandemic. Participants ( N = 122) recruited from a college sample were randomly assigned to complete either daily spiritual connection tasks or a no treatmen…
Hugs and Cortisol Awakening Response the Next Day
Previous research suggests that affectionate touch such as hugs might downregulate stress systems such as the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. However, the current literature lacks in generalizability beyond the laboratory setting and outside the context of romantic relationships. The cortisol awakening response (CAR) is a measure of the HPA axis and is responsive to daily fluctuations in stress and social information. However, associat…
Annual Research Review
A child’s social relationships serve critical functions during development. The interface between a child’s social world and their immune system, particularly innate immunity, which helped children survive in the face of infections, nutritional scarcity, and violence throughout human history, is the focus of this Annual Research Review. This article reviews the state of research on social relationships and innate immune inflammation during childh…
Achieving status and reducing loneliness during the transition to college
Although many emerging adults struggle to gain status and develop social relationships, particularly during the college transition, it remains unclear whether certain personality traits facilitate this transition. Using a longitudinal design, we investigated whether status-related traits-namely, entitlement, intrasexual competitiveness, and dominance-related to the development of status in 91 first-year college students ( M age =18.15, SD =0.44) …
Early life stress, subjective social status, and health during late adolescence
Objective: Both lower subjective social status (SSS)—or viewing oneself as having lower status relative to others—and greater early life stress consistently relate to poorer health in adolescence. Early life stress can also negatively influence one’s social relationships and may thereby shape social status. The present studies investigated how early life stress relates to the development of SSS and how SSS relates to health across the transition …
Generativity and Social Well-Being in Older Women
These results highlight the importance of psychological factors, such as ERA, in moderating the efficacy of interventions to promote social well-being in older adults
The effects of interpersonal emotional expression, partner responsiveness, and emotional approach coping on stress responses
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Emotion on Sep 5 2019 (see record 2019-52812-001). In the article, two text call outs for figures are incorrect. At the end of the "Negative emotional responses" section under the "Psychological Stress Responses" heading, "(see Figure 7)" should have been deleted. Under the "Negative task-related ruminative thoughts" heading in that same section, "(see Figure 5)" in the first …
Advancing social connection as a public health priority in the United States
A robust body of scientific evidence has indicated that being embedded in high-quality close relationships and feeling socially connected to the people in one's life is associated with decreased risk for all-cause mortality as well as a range of disease morbidities. Despite mounting evidence that the magnitude of these associations is comparable to that of many leading health determinants (that receive significant public health resources), govern…
Daily links between school problems and youth perceptions of interactions with parents
This study examined how academic and peer problems at school are linked to family interactions at home on the same day, using eight consecutive weeks of daily diary data collected from early adolescents (60% female; M age = 11.28, SD = 1.50), mothers and fathers in 47 families. On days when children reported more academic problems at school, they, but not their parents, reported less warmth and more conflict with mothers, and more conflict and le…
Positive Expectations Regarding Aging Linked to More New Friends in Later Life
These results are the first to link overall expectations regarding aging to the social domain and suggest that the influence of perceptions of aging is not limited to physical or cognitive function
Measurement reactivity and fatigue effects in daily diary research with families
Methodological challenges associated with measurement reactivity and fatigue were addressed using diary data collected from mothers (n = 47), fathers (n = 39), and children (n = 47; 8-13 years) across 56 consecutive days. Demonstrating the feasibility of extended diary studies with families, on-time compliance rates were upward of 90% for all family members, with only minor within-person declines in weekday compliance over time. Multilevel models…
Spillover in the Home
Conflict with a spouse or child may generate spillover, defined as short-term affective changes in parents that affect their behavior with other family members. In a diverse sample of 86 parents, this 56-day diary study examined daily bidirectional spillover between conflict in the marital or parent-child dyad and parents' irritable, frictional behavior with their child or spouse, respectively. Tests of daily associations between conflict and par…
Social Relationships and Health in Older Adulthood
Older adults make up a larger proportion of the population and are living longer than in any time in previous history, which has important implications for their social relationships. This essay reviews key theory and research on changes in social networks over the lifespan, the benefits (and costs) of social relationships for physical health, and the health impact of loss of social relationships during older age. Methodological innovations are s…
The Attachment System and Physiology in Adulthood
Attachment theory provides a conceptual framework for understanding intersections between personality and close relationships in adulthood. Moreover, attachment has implications for stress‐related physiology and physical health. We review work on normative processes and individual differences in the attachment behavioral system, as well as their associations with biological mechanisms related to health outcomes. We highlight the need for more bas…
Marital quality and health
This meta-analysis reviewed 126 published empirical articles over the past 50 years describing associations between marital relationship quality and physical health in more than 72,000 individuals. Health outcomes included clinical endpoints (objective assessments of function, disease severity, and mortality; subjective health assessments) and surrogate endpoints (biological markers that substitute for clinical endpoints, such as blood pressure).…
Saliva sampling method affects performance of a salivary α‐amylase biosensor
OBJECTIVES: Prompted by the discordance between a standardized salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) biosensor applied in clinical settings and a reference laboratory analyzer, we examined the impact of the saliva sampling method on the analytic performance of the biosensor. METHODS: Direct mouth readings using the biosensor from 31 normal, healthy volunteers were compared to biosensor and conventional assay readings obtained from saliva samples collected…
Using daily diaries to study family settings, emotions, and health in everyday life
Despite well documented links between family functioning and long-term physical health problems, prior studies using cross-sectional, laboratory, or traditional longitudinal designs are limited in their ability to address everyday family encounters, emotions, biological processes, and physical health. Here, we describe our ongoing study of family settings and upper respiratory infections (URIs) to demonstrate the value of daily diary approaches. …
Psychoneuroimmunology
Researchers in the field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) study the intricate multifaceted relationship between changes in the nervous system that accompany psychological states and corresponding changes in immune system function, in the context of health and disease. This chapter outlines the physiological basis for the bidirectional relationships between the nervous and immune systems, noting the advancement in the knowledge of how the autonomic …
A Naturalistic Approach to the Study of Parenting
SYNOPSIS We study parenting within the context of the family—its natural environment—using direct observations and repeated sampling, to describe the real-time unfolding of situations and responses to them. Longitudinal studies attempt to model the long-term impact that different styles of parenting have on the psychological and physical development of offspring. But behavioral, emotional, and biological responses to parenting occur in the moment…
Adult attachment and cortisol responses to discussions with a romantic partner
This study examines the effects of actor and partner attachment security on cortisol responses to discussions of personal and relationship concerns with a romantic partner. Dating couples ( N = 30) completed two 20‐min discussions and provided saliva samples at 4 time points before and after. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that among women, higher levels of partner avoidance predicted greater cortisol reactivity to both discussions and amo…
Momentary Work Worries, Marital Disclosure, and Salivary Cortisol Among Parents of Young Children
OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether worries about work are linked to people's own cortisol levels and their spouses' cortisol levels in everyday life and whether marital factors may moderate these links. Although research has shown that satisfying marriages can buffer the physiological effects of everyday stress, the specific mechanisms through which marriage influences the processing and transmission of stress have not yet been identified. METHODS…
Marital quality and the marital bed
Stress, Social Support, and Delayed Skin Barrier Recovery
OBJECTIVE: To examine the effect of a brief laboratory stressor and social support before the stressor on cardiovascular and cortisol responses, and skin barrier recovery after skin disruption. METHODS: Eighty-five healthy participants (mean age 22.9 +/- 4.4 years) underwent a "tape-stripping" procedure that disrupts normal skin barrier function, and were randomly assigned to a No Stress (reading task), Stress (Trier Social Stress Test), or Stres…
Positive behaviors during marital conflict
To examine the independent and interactive contribution of positive and negative behaviors during marital conflict to changes in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol, behavioral and endocrine data were collected from 90 newlywed couples during a 30-minute conflict task. Positive and negative behaviors were coded by the Marital Interaction Coding System. High levels of husbands' positive behavior and high couple negativity were related …
Advancing social connection as a public health priority in the United States
A robust body of scientific evidence has indicated that being embedded in high-quality close relationships and feeling socially connected to the people in one's life is associated with decreased risk for all-cause mortality as well as a range of disease morbidities. Despite mounting evidence that the magnitude of these associations is comparable to that of many leading health determinants (that receive significant public health resources), govern…
Positive behaviors during marital conflict
To examine the independent and interactive contribution of positive and negative behaviors during marital conflict to changes in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol, behavioral and endocrine data were collected from 90 newlywed couples during a 30-minute conflict task. Positive and negative behaviors were coded by the Marital Interaction Coding System. High levels of husbands' positive behavior and high couple negativity were related …
Spillover in the Home
Conflict with a spouse or child may generate spillover, defined as short-term affective changes in parents that affect their behavior with other family members. In a diverse sample of 86 parents, this 56-day diary study examined daily bidirectional spillover between conflict in the marital or parent-child dyad and parents' irritable, frictional behavior with their child or spouse, respectively. Tests of daily associations between conflict and par…
Adult attachment and cortisol responses to discussions with a romantic partner
This study examines the effects of actor and partner attachment security on cortisol responses to discussions of personal and relationship concerns with a romantic partner. Dating couples ( N = 30) completed two 20‐min discussions and provided saliva samples at 4 time points before and after. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that among women, higher levels of partner avoidance predicted greater cortisol reactivity to both discussions and amo…
Positive Expectations Regarding Aging Linked to More New Friends in Later Life
These results are the first to link overall expectations regarding aging to the social domain and suggest that the influence of perceptions of aging is not limited to physical or cognitive function
Measurement reactivity and fatigue effects in daily diary research with families
Methodological challenges associated with measurement reactivity and fatigue were addressed using diary data collected from mothers (n = 47), fathers (n = 39), and children (n = 47; 8-13 years) across 56 consecutive days. Demonstrating the feasibility of extended diary studies with families, on-time compliance rates were upward of 90% for all family members, with only minor within-person declines in weekday compliance over time. Multilevel models…
Daily links between school problems and youth perceptions of interactions with parents
This study examined how academic and peer problems at school are linked to family interactions at home on the same day, using eight consecutive weeks of daily diary data collected from early adolescents (60% female; M age = 11.28, SD = 1.50), mothers and fathers in 47 families. On days when children reported more academic problems at school, they, but not their parents, reported less warmth and more conflict with mothers, and more conflict and le…
Using daily diaries to study family settings, emotions, and health in everyday life
Despite well documented links between family functioning and long-term physical health problems, prior studies using cross-sectional, laboratory, or traditional longitudinal designs are limited in their ability to address everyday family encounters, emotions, biological processes, and physical health. Here, we describe our ongoing study of family settings and upper respiratory infections (URIs) to demonstrate the value of daily diary approaches. …
A Naturalistic Approach to the Study of Parenting
SYNOPSIS We study parenting within the context of the family—its natural environment—using direct observations and repeated sampling, to describe the real-time unfolding of situations and responses to them. Longitudinal studies attempt to model the long-term impact that different styles of parenting have on the psychological and physical development of offspring. But behavioral, emotional, and biological responses to parenting occur in the moment…
Psychoneuroimmunology
This review focuses on human psychoneuroimmunology studies published in the past decade. Issues discussed include the routes through which psychological factors influence immune function, how a stressor's duration may influence the changes observed, individual difference variables, the ability of interventions to modulate immune function, and the health consequences of psychosocially mediated immune dysregulation. The importance of negative affec…
Emotions, Morbidity, and Mortality
Negative emotions can intensify a variety of health threats. We provide a broad framework relating negative emotions to a range of diseases whose onset and course may be influenced by the immune system; inflammation has been linked to a spectrum of conditions associated with aging, including cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, Alzheimer's disease, frailty and functional decline, and periodontal disea…
Psychoneuroimmunology and Psychosomatic Medicine
OBJECTIVE: Although psychological modulation of immune function is now a well-established phenomenon, much of the relevant literature has been published within the last decade. This article speculates on future directions for psychoneuroimmunology research, after reviewing the history of the field. METHODS: This review focuses on human psychoneuroimmunology studies published since 1939, particularly those that have appeared in Psychosomatic Medic…
The physiology of marriage
Positive behaviors during marital conflict
To examine the independent and interactive contribution of positive and negative behaviors during marital conflict to changes in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol, behavioral and endocrine data were collected from 90 newlywed couples during a 30-minute conflict task. Positive and negative behaviors were coded by the Marital Interaction Coding System. High levels of husbands' positive behavior and high couple negativity were related …
Marital quality and the marital bed
Stress, Social Support, and Delayed Skin Barrier Recovery
OBJECTIVE: To examine the effect of a brief laboratory stressor and social support before the stressor on cardiovascular and cortisol responses, and skin barrier recovery after skin disruption. METHODS: Eighty-five healthy participants (mean age 22.9 +/- 4.4 years) underwent a "tape-stripping" procedure that disrupts normal skin barrier function, and were randomly assigned to a No Stress (reading task), Stress (Trier Social Stress Test), or Stres…
Momentary Work Worries, Marital Disclosure, and Salivary Cortisol Among Parents of Young Children
OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether worries about work are linked to people's own cortisol levels and their spouses' cortisol levels in everyday life and whether marital factors may moderate these links. Although research has shown that satisfying marriages can buffer the physiological effects of everyday stress, the specific mechanisms through which marriage influences the processing and transmission of stress have not yet been identified. METHODS…
Adult attachment and cortisol responses to discussions with a romantic partner
This study examines the effects of actor and partner attachment security on cortisol responses to discussions of personal and relationship concerns with a romantic partner. Dating couples ( N = 30) completed two 20‐min discussions and provided saliva samples at 4 time points before and after. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that among women, higher levels of partner avoidance predicted greater cortisol reactivity to both discussions and amo…
Psychoneuroimmunology
Researchers in the field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) study the intricate multifaceted relationship between changes in the nervous system that accompany psychological states and corresponding changes in immune system function, in the context of health and disease. This chapter outlines the physiological basis for the bidirectional relationships between the nervous and immune systems, noting the advancement in the knowledge of how the autonomic …
A Naturalistic Approach to the Study of Parenting
SYNOPSIS We study parenting within the context of the family—its natural environment—using direct observations and repeated sampling, to describe the real-time unfolding of situations and responses to them. Longitudinal studies attempt to model the long-term impact that different styles of parenting have on the psychological and physical development of offspring. But behavioral, emotional, and biological responses to parenting occur in the moment…
Saliva sampling method affects performance of a salivary α‐amylase biosensor
OBJECTIVES: Prompted by the discordance between a standardized salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) biosensor applied in clinical settings and a reference laboratory analyzer, we examined the impact of the saliva sampling method on the analytic performance of the biosensor. METHODS: Direct mouth readings using the biosensor from 31 normal, healthy volunteers were compared to biosensor and conventional assay readings obtained from saliva samples collected…
Using daily diaries to study family settings, emotions, and health in everyday life
Despite well documented links between family functioning and long-term physical health problems, prior studies using cross-sectional, laboratory, or traditional longitudinal designs are limited in their ability to address everyday family encounters, emotions, biological processes, and physical health. Here, we describe our ongoing study of family settings and upper respiratory infections (URIs) to demonstrate the value of daily diary approaches. …
The Attachment System and Physiology in Adulthood
Attachment theory provides a conceptual framework for understanding intersections between personality and close relationships in adulthood. Moreover, attachment has implications for stress‐related physiology and physical health. We review work on normative processes and individual differences in the attachment behavioral system, as well as their associations with biological mechanisms related to health outcomes. We highlight the need for more bas…
Marital quality and health
This meta-analysis reviewed 126 published empirical articles over the past 50 years describing associations between marital relationship quality and physical health in more than 72,000 individuals. Health outcomes included clinical endpoints (objective assessments of function, disease severity, and mortality; subjective health assessments) and surrogate endpoints (biological markers that substitute for clinical endpoints, such as blood pressure).…
Social Relationships and Health in Older Adulthood
Older adults make up a larger proportion of the population and are living longer than in any time in previous history, which has important implications for their social relationships. This essay reviews key theory and research on changes in social networks over the lifespan, the benefits (and costs) of social relationships for physical health, and the health impact of loss of social relationships during older age. Methodological innovations are s…
Daily links between school problems and youth perceptions of interactions with parents
This study examined how academic and peer problems at school are linked to family interactions at home on the same day, using eight consecutive weeks of daily diary data collected from early adolescents (60% female; M age = 11.28, SD = 1.50), mothers and fathers in 47 families. On days when children reported more academic problems at school, they, but not their parents, reported less warmth and more conflict with mothers, and more conflict and le…
Positive Expectations Regarding Aging Linked to More New Friends in Later Life
These results are the first to link overall expectations regarding aging to the social domain and suggest that the influence of perceptions of aging is not limited to physical or cognitive function
Measurement reactivity and fatigue effects in daily diary research with families
Methodological challenges associated with measurement reactivity and fatigue were addressed using diary data collected from mothers (n = 47), fathers (n = 39), and children (n = 47; 8-13 years) across 56 consecutive days. Demonstrating the feasibility of extended diary studies with families, on-time compliance rates were upward of 90% for all family members, with only minor within-person declines in weekday compliance over time. Multilevel models…
Spillover in the Home
Conflict with a spouse or child may generate spillover, defined as short-term affective changes in parents that affect their behavior with other family members. In a diverse sample of 86 parents, this 56-day diary study examined daily bidirectional spillover between conflict in the marital or parent-child dyad and parents' irritable, frictional behavior with their child or spouse, respectively. Tests of daily associations between conflict and par…
Advancing social connection as a public health priority in the United States
A robust body of scientific evidence has indicated that being embedded in high-quality close relationships and feeling socially connected to the people in one's life is associated with decreased risk for all-cause mortality as well as a range of disease morbidities. Despite mounting evidence that the magnitude of these associations is comparable to that of many leading health determinants (that receive significant public health resources), govern…
The effects of interpersonal emotional expression, partner responsiveness, and emotional approach coping on stress responses
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Emotion on Sep 5 2019 (see record 2019-52812-001). In the article, two text call outs for figures are incorrect. At the end of the "Negative emotional responses" section under the "Psychological Stress Responses" heading, "(see Figure 7)" should have been deleted. Under the "Negative task-related ruminative thoughts" heading in that same section, "(see Figure 5)" in the first …
Early life stress, subjective social status, and health during late adolescence
Objective: Both lower subjective social status (SSS)—or viewing oneself as having lower status relative to others—and greater early life stress consistently relate to poorer health in adolescence. Early life stress can also negatively influence one’s social relationships and may thereby shape social status. The present studies investigated how early life stress relates to the development of SSS and how SSS relates to health across the transition …
Generativity and Social Well-Being in Older Women
These results highlight the importance of psychological factors, such as ERA, in moderating the efficacy of interventions to promote social well-being in older adults
Annual Research Review
A child’s social relationships serve critical functions during development. The interface between a child’s social world and their immune system, particularly innate immunity, which helped children survive in the face of infections, nutritional scarcity, and violence throughout human history, is the focus of this Annual Research Review. This article reviews the state of research on social relationships and innate immune inflammation during childh…
Psychology (28 works) · Medicine (21 works) · Developmental psychology (19 works) · Clinical Psychology (17 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Stress Responses and Cortisol (11 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (10 works) · Clinical Psychology (10 works) · Psychiatry (10 works)