Journal
JOURNALS OF GERONTOLOGY SERIES B-PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Volume 69, Issue -, Pages S64-S74Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbu038
Keywords
Dyads; Relationship quality; Shared activity
Funding
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Aging [R37AG030481, R01AG033903]
- Office of Women's Health Research
- Office of AIDS Research
- Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research [R01AG021487]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Objectives. This paper introduces scales on shared activity and relationship quality for married and partnered older adults using multiple indicators from the second wave of National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project. Method. We assessed the reliability of the scales using Cronbach's alpha and the item-total correlation. We conducted exploratory factor analysis to explore the structure of the items and compared the distribution of each scale means by age group and gender. Results. We found that the relational quality scale has a 2-factor structure, including a positive and negative dimension. The shared activity scale has a 1-factor structure. We found that partnered men show both higher positive and higher negative relationship quality than do partnered women, suggesting that more older men than women experience ambivalent feelings toward their spouse or partner and more women than men have relationships of indifferent quality, with relatively low costs and relatively low benefits. Discussion. The separate conceptualization of shared activity and relationship quality provides one way to examine the dynamic nature of marital quality in later life such as the extent to which shared activities among couples promote or detract from relationships' quality. Analyses for individuals and for dyads are discussed.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available