ABSTRACT
People ask close others to "just be there" as they face challenges. Many women, for instance, want a close partner and familiar medical and lay caretakers by their sides as they go through the childbirth process. This chapter reviews research demonstrating the positive effects of two types of "mere presence". Specifically: Merely having a familiar partner present as a bystander as one experiences a threat attenuates the threat; and Merely having a familiar partner co-experience something pleasurable enhances the experience. The idea that the mere presence of familiar by-standing partners dampens the impact of threats as people move through daily life, and the idea that merely experiencing pleasant events simultaneously with familiar others boosts pleasure, both rest on some theoretical assumptions that are well-grounded in research. Psychologists long have known that people are driven to share experiences with those to whom they are close. Moreover, research suggests that this inclination pays off.
