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Jean-Philippe Gouin, PhD

Thesis supervisor Accepting inquiries

  • Professor, Psychology

Research areas: Stress, depression, insomnia, social support, dyadic coping, health behaviour change, autonomic functioning, psychoneuroendocrinology, psychoneuroimmunology

Contact information

Email:

JP.Gouin@concordia.ca

Websites:

SIRH LAB
CCRH Website
Google Scholar Profile

Biography

Education

PhD (The Ohio State University)

Biography

Dr. Gouin is a clinical and health psychologist. He is a former Canada Research Chair in Chronic Stress and Health and the director of the Stress, Interpersonal Relationships, and Health Laboratory.

Research interests

Our research program investigates the impact of social relationships and social stress on health outcomes across the lifespan. We are interested in identifying specific biopsychosocial pathways through which social relationships quality and quantify influence risk for age-related diseases. 

Specifically, we examine how social relationships influence 1) the experience of stress, positive and negative emotions, emotion regulation processes, and depression; 2) engagement in health behaviours, including sleep, physical activity, and diet; 3) stress-related physiological processes, such as chronic inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and low parasympathetic functioning, and 4) the interactions among these different processes, in particular the bidirectional and reciprocal associations between psychosocial stress and inflammation.

We are particularly interested in how spouses influence each other in terms of emotional responses, health behaviours, and physiology, as well as dyadic coping, how spouses work together to deal with the stresses that both partners are facing. Recent work aims at developing couples-based interventions to improve dyadic coping and foster positive health behaviour change.

Using a developmental perspective, we also examine how early social experiences increases risk for age-related diseases later in life.

Our work is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Quebec Network for Suicide, Mood Disorders and Related Disorders, the Canadian Lung Association, and the PERFORM Centre

Current studies examine:

-The moderating role of dyadic coping in the association between spousal control behaviour and changes in diet and physical activity among cohabiting couples. Funded by SSHRC.

-The impact of a couples-based lifestyle intervention on physical activity and blood sugar regulation among older adults with type II diabetes. Funded by Diabetes Canada. 



Representative Publications

*Gouin, J.P. & Dymarsky, M. (2024). Couples-based health behavior change interventions: a relationship science perspective on the unique opportunities and challenges to improve dyadic health. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 19,100250.

*Lara,E., Matovic, S., Vasiliadis, H. M., Grenier, S., Berbiche, D., de laTorre-Luque, A., & Gouin, J. P. (2023). Correlates and trajectories of loneliness amongcommunity-dwelling older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: A Canadianlongitudinal study. Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 115,105133.


*MacNeil, S., Renaud,J., & Gouin, J. P. (2023). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, negative social interactions, and fluctuations in unmet interpersonal needs: A daily diary study. Suicide & life-threatening behavior, 53(4),597–612.


*Ouellet-Courtois,C.*, Gravel, C.*, &Gouin, J.P. (2023). A longitudinal study of “we-talk” as a predictorof marital satisfaction. Personal Relationships. 30(1), 314-331.


*Caldwell, W.,MacNeil, S., Wrosch, C., McGrath, J.J., Dang-Vu, T.T., Morin, A.J.S., Gouin,J.P. (2022). Respiratory SinusArrhythmia Moderates the Interpersonal Consequences of Brooding Rumination. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.


*Gouin, J.P., *Paquin, C., Wrosch, C., McGrath, J.,Arbour, N., & Booij, L. (2020). Marital Quality and Inflammation: the Moderating Roleof Early Life Adversity. HealthPsychology, 39(1), 58-67


*Caldwell, W., da Estrela, C., MacNeil, S., Gouin,J.-P. (2019). Association between romantic partners’ brooding rumination and negative marital exchanges is moderated by respiratory sinus arrhythmia: An actor-partner interdependence model. Journal of Family Psychology.


*Gouin,J.P., Zhou, Q.Q., Booij, L., Boivin M., Côté, S.M.,Hébert, M., I. Ouellet-Morin, M. Szyf, M., Tremblay, R.E., Turecki,G., and Vitaro, F. (2017). Associations among oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) DNA methylation in adulthood, exposure to early life adversity, and childhood trajectories of anxiousness. Scientific Reports. 7 (1): 7446.


*Gouin, J.P., Scarcello, S., da Estrela, C. Paquin,C., & Barker, E.T. (2016). Dyadic Coping and Inflammation in the Contextof Chronic Stress. Health Psychology, 35(10), 1081-1084.


*Gouin, J.P.,Zhou, B., & Fitzpatrick, S. (2015). Social Integration Prospectively Predicts Changes in Heart Rate Variability Among Individuals Undergoing Migration Stress. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 49(2), 230-238.


*Kiecolt-Glaser, J.K., Gouin, J.P., Glaser, R., Malarkey, W.B., Pang, N. (2011). Childhood Adversity Heightens the Impact of Later-Life Caregiving Stress on Telomere Length and Inflammation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 73(1), 16-22.


*Gouin, J.P., Carter, C.S., Pournajafi-Nazarloo, H., Glaser, R., Malarkey, W.,Loving, T., Stowell, J., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. (2010). Marital Behavior, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, and Wound Healing. Psychoneuroendocrinology.35(7):1082-1090

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