Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have uncovered some evidence that people who have a more satisfying sex life are more “in sync” with their partner at a physiological level.
Their new study, which has been published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, was motivated by the general lack of psychophysiological research within the field of human sexuality.
“Historically, there’s been a paucity of couple-level research in sexuality, and virtually no research in this area has taken a dyadic psychophysiological approach to studying sexual relationships. That leaves us with a significant gap in our understanding of sexual satisfaction — we know how it manifests subjectively, but don’t yet understand its physiological correlates,” explained study author Bridget K. Freihart, a doctoral student and member of the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory.
The study examined 29 monogamous couples who had been in their current relationship for at least 3 months.
The couples separately completed several questionnaires before being brought into a private testing room, seated facing each other, and hooked up to electrocardiographs. A researcher instructed each couple via intercom to quietly look into each other’s eyes for 5 minutes and then to actively attempt to mirror one another for another 5 minutes.
The researchers observed physiological synchrony in the couples. A change in the female partner’s heart rate predicted a change in the male partner’s heart rate and vice-versa.
There was also some evidence that sexual satisfaction moderated this relationship. Couples with higher sexual satisfaction scores tended to display greater physiological synchrony — but only during the mirroring task and only when male partner’s heart rate predicted female partner’s heart rate.
So why didn’t sexual satisfaction influence physiological synchrony in the opposite direction (female-to-male)? “It is well-documented that women tend to be better than men at accurately identifying nonverbal cues. As such, female partners may be identifying and responding to their partner’s cues more effectively than male partners in this sample,” the researchers explained their study.
“There is some evidence that physiological attunement with a partner is important for the quality of sexual relationships. While the mechanism of action here needs to be interrogated further, our results might suggest that empathy manifested at the physiological level facilitates positive sexual experiences for both partners,” Freihart told PsyPost.
“This study was intended to be a preliminary, proof-of-concept examination of the relationship between physiological synchrony and sexual satisfaction. While we did find evidence of an association here, the directionality of that relationship is unclear.”
“Based on our study design, we have no way of knowing whether physiological synchrony is a cause or consequence of sexual satisfaction. Additionally, our sample was limited to opposite-sex couples — additional research should evaluate whether this relationship holds in a more diverse sample of dyads,” Freihart said.
The study, “Preliminary Evidence for a Relationship Between Physiological Synchrony and Sexual Satisfaction in Opposite-Sex Couples“, was authored by Bridget K. Freihart and Cindy M. Meston.