 Shared lives, shared stress: Witnessing and spillover effects in spousal mental health interactionsDain Jung, Do Won Kwak (), Kam Ki Tang and Myra Yazbeck Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025, vol. 233, issue C Abstract: The study examines the impact of significant events experienced by a partner on one’s mental health. It differentiates between the “witnessing effect” (direct observation of the partner’s events) and the “spillover effect” (mental health alterations mirrored from the partner). Contrary to past research, these effects are distinguished. We find that the strength of the witnessing effect varies by event type and gender, whereas the spillover effect is stable across events and genders. These findings highlight an oversight in previous research, which used exclusive partner events as instruments to estimate the spousal spillover effect without distinguishing it from the witnessing effect. The surprising finding of no gender bias in the spillover effect challenges the notion that women are more emotionally contagious. The findings suggest that the strong and gender-specific witnessing effect appears to outweigh the gender-neutral spillover effect in previous research. Keywords: Mental health; Social contagion; Spillover effects; Relationship satisfaction; Gender (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:233:y:2025:i:c:s016726812500071x DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106951 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D. More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.