Understanding Age-Related Changes in Relationship Maintenance Strategies

了解关系维持策略中与年龄相关的变化

• 批准号: 1451492
• 负责人: Lisa Neff
• 金额: $ 51.16万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-05-01 至 2020-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1451492&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Age; Related; Changes; Relationship

A wealth of research indicates that high quality romantic relationships allow individuals to thrive both emotionally and physically. In fact, the impact of close relationships on health has been shown to be larger than the impact of a variety of negative health behaviors, such as smoking, excessive drinking, and obesity. Unfortunately, longer life expectancies and high divorce rates have contributed to a new social reality in which older adults (i.e., age 60+) increasingly find themselves unpartnered and searching for companionship. Despite these societal trends, research on how older adults form and maintain satisfying new romantic relationships is scarce. Although the close relationships research has much to say regarding the relationship processes that create a happier, healthier relationship, this literature has focused overwhelmingly on relationship formation in young adults, leaving open questions regarding the generalizability of these findings to an older population. Similarly, although the aging literature has developed influential theories about age-related changes in interpersonal skills, applications of these ideas to the romantic domain have focused on older adults in longstanding marriages (e.g., 20+ years), and thus may not extrapolate to newly-formed romantic relationships. Thus, the proposed research is designed to fill this gap, and will test if there are potential age-related changes in the way individuals navigate the inevitable ups and downs of a new romantic relationship. Specifically, the goal of the current proposal is to examine whether the life experience that comes with age facilitates positive and constructive responses when relationship conflicts arise. Integrating insights from both the aging and the close relationships literatures suggests that the answer to this question may depend on the relational context. Although the increases in socioemotional expertise that come with age should equip older adults with enhanced ability to successfully manage relationship challenges in longstanding relationships, older adults' advantage over younger adults may diminish in the context of newly-formed dating relationships. Efforts to minimize relationship conflict often prove more difficult in the early stages of relationship development; unfortunately, when relationship conflicts are not effectively averted, older adults tend to be more vulnerable than younger adults to the emotional and physical costs such challenges can bring. Thus, the current project aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of relationship maintenance efforts across the lifespan through a multi-method study comparing the maintenance strategies of older adults in longstanding marriages, older adults in newly-formed romantic relationships, younger adults in longstanding relationships, and younger adults in newly-formed romantic relationships, as well as the implications of these strategies for emotional and physical well-being. Results from this study will be informative for improving happiness and health throughout the lifespan.

大量研究表明，高质量的浪漫关系可以让个人在情感和身体上都蓬勃发展。 事实上，亲密关系对健康的影响已被证明比各种负面健康行为（如吸烟、过量饮酒和肥胖）的影响更大。不幸的是，预期寿命的延长和高离婚率导致了一种新的社会现实，即老年人（即 60 岁以上）越来越多地发现自己没有伴侣并寻求陪伴。尽管存在这些社会趋势，但关于老年人如何形成和维持令人满意的新浪漫关系的研究却很少。尽管亲密关系研究对于创造更快乐、更健康的关系的关系过程有很多话要说，但这些文献绝大多数集中在年轻人的关系形成上，留下了关于这些研究结果是否适用于老年人的悬而未决的问题。同样，尽管老龄化文献已经发展出关于人际技能与年龄相关的变化的有影响力的理论，但这些想法在浪漫领域的应用主要集中在长期婚姻（例如20年以上）的老年人身上，因此可能无法推断到新的婚姻- 形成浪漫关系。因此，拟议的研究旨在填补这一空白，并将测试个人在新的浪漫关系中不可避免的起起落落的方式是否存在与年龄相关的潜在变化。具体来说，当前提案的目标是检查随着年龄的增长而出现的生活经历是否有助于在关系冲突出现时做出积极和建设性的反应。整合老龄化和亲密关系文献的见解表明，这个问题的答案可能取决于关系背景。尽管随着年龄的增长，社会情感专业知识的增加应该使老年人能够增强成功应对长期关系中的关系挑战的能力，但在新形成的约会关系中，老年人相对于年轻人的优势可能会减弱。在关系发展的早期阶段，尽量减少关系冲突往往会更加困难；不幸的是，如果不能有效避免关系冲突，老年人往往比年轻人更容易受到此类挑战带来的情感和身体代价。因此，本项目旨在通过多方法研究，比较长期婚姻中的老年人、新建立的恋爱关系中的老年人、长期关系中的年轻人的维持策略，从而更全面地了解整个生命周期的关系维持努力。和新建立的恋爱关系中的年轻人，以及这些策略对情感和身体健康的影响。这项研究的结果将为改善整个生命周期的幸福和健康提供信息。