New Ways to Explore the Relationship–Emotion–Health Connection

The commentaries by Rimé (2018) and Scherer (2018) underscore and extend many of the central themes discussed in our target article (Sbarra & Coan, 2018). This response filters the commentaries through the lens of our review article and highlights the core idea that relationships provide a vital context for the types of emotional responding outlined in the commentaries, including the social sharing of emotion (an inherently interpersonal process) as well as the link between emotional competence and physical health (which can unfold both within and between people).