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，高质量的浪漫关系使个人在情感和身体上都能蓬勃发展。 实际上，密切关系对健康的影响已显示出大于各种负面健康行为的影响，例如吸烟，饮酒过多和肥胖。不幸的是，较长的预期寿命和高离婚率促成了一种新的社会现实，其中老年人（即60岁以上）越来越多地发现自己不努力并正在寻找陪伴。尽管有这些社会趋势，但对老年人如何形成和保持满意的新浪漫关系的研究很少。尽管关于建立更幸福，更健康关系的关系过程的亲密关系研究有很多话要说，但这些文献以压倒性的大多数集中在年轻人的关系形成上，留下了有关这些发现对老年人群的普遍性的开放性问题。同样，尽管衰老文献已经开发了有关年龄相关的人际交往能力变化的有影响力的理论，但这些思想对浪漫领域的应用已集中在长期婚姻（例如20多年）中的老年人，因此可能不会推断新形成的浪漫关系。因此，拟议的研究旨在填补这一空白，并将测试个人是否存在与新浪漫关系不可避免的起伏的方式存在潜在的变化。具体而言，当前提案的目的是检查随着年龄的增长的生活经验是否有助于当发生冲突时积极和建设性的反应。整合老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上下文。尽管随着年龄的增长，社会情感专业知识的提高应该使老年人能够增强能够在长期关系中成功管理关系挑战的能力，但是在新建的约会关系的背景下，老年人对年轻人的优势可能会降低。在关系发展的早期阶段，最小化关系冲突的努力通常会更加困难；不幸的是，当没有有效避免关系冲突时，老年人往往比年轻人更容易受到情感和身体成本的影响。因此，当前的项目旨在通过一项多方法研究对整个生命周期的关系维持工作进行更全面的了解，以比较长期婚姻中老年人的维护策略，新成立的浪漫关系中的老年人，长期存在的年轻成年人，长期关系中的年轻成年人以及在新成立的浪漫关系中的新成年人，以及对这些战略关系以及情感良好的情感和情感和情感和情感的影响。这项研究的结果将提供帮助，以改善整个生命周期的幸福感和健康。