Changes in older couples’ compassionate love over a year

Abstract

Although compassionate love has been identified as a key characteristic of healthy relationships, it is unknown how it changes over time. Thus, both self- and spouse-reported compassionate love toward a spouse were assessed from a sample of 64 older married couples to begin to understand the course of compassionate love and to identify predictors of potential changes over a 1-year period. In contrast to prior theoretical and cross-sectional work, results indicated that compassionate love modestly declined over two waves spaced approximately 17 months apart. Although health was largely unrelated to compassionate love, wives’ attachment avoidance emerged as a consistent, negative predictor of compassionate love for both husbands and wives. These preliminary findings raise some concern for older spouses as they transition into more caregiving roles, as the need for compassionate love is theorized to be greater later in life. Future research should focus on replicating these findings in more diverse samples of older adults to capture how compassionate love develops amid the unique challenges associated with aging.

Keywords

Attachment theory compassionate love marriage older adults

Being in a high-quality marriage confers numerous health benefits (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001), due in large part to the care and support that spouses provide each other (Slatcher, 2010). This health advantage is magnified for older couples, as spouses commonly take on more of a caregiving role in response to normative health declines (Lima, Allen, Goldscheider, & Intrator, 2008). The importance of the marital relationship for health may become even more critical for future cohorts, in light of recent evidence documenting the poor health of the baby boomer generation (King, Matheson, Chirina, Shankar, & Broman-Fulks, 2013). Thus, greater attention needs to be paid to what might motivate couples to care for each other, as not all spouses may be equally able to handle such a challenge.

One promising avenue of research in this vein focuses on compassionate love, defined as a love that is “centered on the good of the other” (Underwood, 2009). Compassionate love for one’s spouse has been positively linked to marital functioning for older couples (Sabey, Rauer, & Jensen, 2014), as well as being a predictor of prosocial relationship behaviors, such as caregiving and social support (for a review, see Fehr, Harasymchuk, & Sprecher, 2014). Given the value of compassionate love for close relationships, it is important to capture both its stability over time and the factors that predict its potential changes. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to examine compassionate love for one’s spouse over a year among a sample of older couples and begin to identify who is more likely to experience compassionate love for their spouse.

The development and predictors of compassionate love

One of the four main types of love, compassionate love is defined as an affective and cognitive orientation focused on caring and concern toward others. It is typically manifested through support, help, and understanding (Berscheid, 2010; Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). Although closely related to the agape love style, as both involve a sense of selflessness, compassionate love has been found to be methodologically distinct due to its broader inclusion of tenderness, caring, and concern for others (Fehr et al., 2014). According to Underwood’s (2009) theoretical model, compassionate love should typically grow over time within healthy, long-term relationships, as demonstrating compassionate love should increase its future likelihood (Clark & Monin, 2006). Cross-sectional evidence on altruistic love, a related construct, also suggests that compassionate love might increase over the course of the life span (Smith, 2009). However, no long-term longitudinal research on compassionate love has been done to date and thus the natural course of compassionate love over time remains unknown.

Underscoring the potential for different courses of compassionate love, Underwood’s (2009) model suggests that there are factors (e.g., individual, situational, and relational) that shape the experience of compassionate love and make it more or less likely for it to be expressed. As to the specific factors of focus here, we drew from the literature on compassionate love to select factors that would allow us to capture a range of predictors likely to shape the course of compassionate love among older couples. Focusing on sex (individual factor), health (situational), and relationship-specific attachment security (relational) will help scholars understand who is likely to experience compassionate love later in life and how it may differ over the course of a year.

Sex

Sex may be a particularly salient individual factor that could shape the expression of compassionate love over time, as women have been found to be more nurturing and feel more responsible for the emotional tenor of their relationships (Strazdins & Broom, 2004; Taylor, 2006). However, men and women have reported feeling similar levels of compassionate love toward their romantic partners in cross-sectional studies of both younger and older adults (Fehr et al., 2014; Sabey et al., 2014). Research on sex differences within related constructs of empathy and altruistic love have been mixed, with women reporting greater empathy but men reporting greater altruistic love (Smith, 2009). Taken together, it is unclear how older husbands’ and wives’ compassionate love may differentially change over a year, although the evidence to date seems to suggest that any potential changes for husbands and wives may be similar.

Health

The development and experience of compassionate love within a couple’s relationship is also shaped by situational factors, including the specific needs of the other and the extent of those needs (Underwood, 2009). Compassionate love is thought to be most clearly activated in the context of a partner’s distress—meaning, the motivation to care and actual acts of caring for others are heightened when others are perceived to be in greater need (Collins et al., 2014; Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). Thus, the physical health of one’s spouse may be a key situational factor, whereby the greater the need of the other (i.e., the worse health of a spouse), the greater the opportunity to express compassionate love (Roberts, Wise, & DuBenske, 2009). This factor may be particularly relevant for older adults considering their normative yet significant health challenges (Hodes & Suzman, 2007). Supporting such a conclusion is previous research showing that older adults’ poorer health is associated with receiving more compassionate love from a spouse (Rauer, Sabey, & Jensen, 2014). Therefore, it is likely that having a spouse in poorer health should not only predict higher levels of compassionate love for older spouses initially but greater increases over a year as health tends to decline more rapidly during this time. In light of the declining health of recent retirees (King et al., 2013), examining health as a situational factor in the experience and course of compassionate love represents an important and timely goal.

Attachment security

In addition to individual and situational factors, Underwood’s (2009) model highlights the role that relational factors play in the expression of compassionate love. One of the few relational factors examined to date is adult attachment security (Collins et al., 2014), which refers to a lasting sense of physical and emotional security in one’s closest relationships (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). Comprised of avoidance (i.e., discomfort with dependence on a relational partner) and anxiety (i.e., strong desire for closeness but fear of rejection), attachment security strongly predicts whether and how an individual will respond to others (Collins & Ford, 2010; Collins et al., 2014; Mikulincer, Shaver, & Gillath, 2009). For example, attachment avoidance has been strongly linked to young adults reporting less compassionate love toward a romantic partner, though no such link has been found between attachment anxiety and compassionate love (Sprecher & Fehr, 2011). To note, although some scholars consider attachment security to be a stable individual trait (i.e., dispositional attachment security), others argue that attachment differs within individuals across different relationships (i.e., relationship-specific attachment security; Ross & Spinner, 2001). Empirical research has supported this distinction, finding that relationship-specific attachment measures effectively tap into the dynamics of a specific relationship (Sprecher & Fehr, 2011). Thus, we focus here on relationship-specific attachment to capture relational aspects of the marital relationship.

Relationship-specific attachment security may play a particular role in the expression of compassionate love among older, long-term married couples. Older spousal caregivers who had more secure attachment styles provided more support and reported having a more positive view of providing spousal care (Feeney & Hohaus, 2001). Given older couples have cited such behaviors as manifestations of compassionate love (Sabey, Rauer, & Haselschwerdt, 2016), it is likely that relationship-specific attachment security may be linked to changes in older couples’ compassionate love over time. At the same time that compassionate love is most needed, however, older adults tend to exhibit a more avoidant attachment style than younger and middle-aged adults (Magai et al., 2001; Montague, Magai, Consedine, & Gillespie, 2003; Zhang & Labouvie-Vief, 2004). This potential relationship-specific attachment avoidance may then lead individuals to be less able or willing to express compassionate love for their spouse later in life. In light of its prevalence later in life coupled with previous links between attachment avoidance and compassionate love in younger adults (Sprecher & Fehr, 2011), examining the role of older couples’ relationship-specific attachment avoidance in current and future experiences of compassionate love is clearly warranted.

The current study

As Berscheid (2010) noted, older couples’ compassionate love is of particular interest as it may be most needed but also difficult to demonstrate due to increasing age-related challenges. Therefore, this study sought to capture not only how the provision of compassionate love might change within the late-life marital relationship over a year but also determine who is likely to care for their spouse in the face of these normative challenges. To do so, the current study investigated how an individual (i.e., sex), situational (i.e., health), and relational (i.e., attachment avoidance) factor predicted potential differences in compassionate love toward a spouse across two waves spaced approximately a year apart.

Consistent with the theoretical literature (Underwood, 2009), we hypothesized that older couples’ compassionate love would increase over a year. As to the predictors of compassionate love, based on cross-sectional work showing that men and women report similar levels of compassionate love (Fehr et al., 2014; Sabey et al., 2014), husbands’ and wives’ compassionate love was predicted to increase similarly. Given that greater compassionate love has been linked to worse health (Rauer et al., 2014), poorer health of one’s spouse was also hypothesized to predict greater increases in spouses’ compassionate love. Finally, considering research showing that attachment avoidance is related to expressing less compassionate love (Sprecher & Fehr, 2011), relationship-specific attachment avoidance should predict both less initial compassionate love for older husbands and wives and smaller increases of compassionate love over time.

To best capture compassionate love over time, it is critical to draw from multiple perspectives, as self- and spouse-reported compassionate love have been shown to be related yet tap into different nuances of marital relationships (Rauer et al., 2014; Reis, Maniaci, & Rogge, 2014). Accordingly, we examined how older couples’ compassionate love changed over a year using a series of actor–partner interdependence models (APIMs), which allowed us to account for the nonindependent nature of the data and examine how husbands’ and wives’ compassionate love predicted any differences in compassionate love of their spouses (Cook & Kenny, 2005).

Method

Participants

Sixty-four married heterosexual couples participated in a study investigating marital relationships and well-being in older adulthood. Couples were recruited through advertisements in newspapers, churches, and other organizations in a community in the Southeast U.S. To be eligible to participate, couples had to be married, at least partially retired or working less than 40 hr a week, and able to drive to the research center. The latter qualification was designed to ensure that spouses were in relatively good health. Approximately 1 year (M = 16.8 months) after the initial data collection, couples were recontacted and asked to complete another questionnaire for the second wave of data collection.

At Wave 1, husbands and wives were, on average, approximately 71 (standard deviation [SD] = 7.4) and 70 years old (SD = 7.0), respectively, and were mostly European American (n = 61 and n = 60, respectively). Three husbands and three wives were African American, and one wife was Asian American. In terms of education, 43 husbands and 57 wives had completed college or postgraduate degrees. The average income for couples was US$85,875 (SD = US$64,074), and they had an average total wealth of US$1,082,547 (SD = US$1,277,611), including couple assets such as property, pensions, and individual retirement accounts. Forty-seven couples (73%) were fully retired and 17 couples had one spouse still working for pay. Couples had been married for 42 years, on average (SD = 15), were an average of 2.7 years apart in age, and 51 couples (80%) were in their first marriage. The couples had an average of 2.6 children (SD = 1.3; range = 0–6). 83% of the couples reported being affiliated with a Christian religion (e.g., Catholic, Methodist). To note, these characteristics are most likely not representative of the general population of older couples. At Wave 2, 55 of the 64 original couples (86%) completed follow-up questionnaires. Attrition analyses revealed that no attrition differences for wives. Husbands lost to attrition had lower spouse-reported compassionate love than those who participated at both waves, t(61) = 2.01, p < .05.

Procedures

For the first wave of data collection (Wave 1), couples participated in a 2- to 3-hr interview at an on-campus research laboratory that consisted of several marital interaction tasks including a relationship narrative task, a conflict task, a compassionate love task (described below), and a support task. At the end of the interview, each spouse was given a questionnaire packet, which assessed aspects of individual, marital, and family life, including physical and mental health, personality characteristics, and relationship quality and satisfaction.¹ Most couples returned the questionnaire via mail approximately 2–3 weeks following the interview. Couples were paid US$75 upon receipt of the questionnaire packet. For the second wave of data collection (Wave 2), recontacted couples who agreed to participate were sent questionnaires via mail. Couples were compensated US$45 once the completed questionnaires were returned.

Measures

Compassionate love

We assessed both self- and spouse-reported compassionate love toward a spouse. To assess self-reported compassionate love at both waves, participants completed the Compassionate Love for a Close Other Scale (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). This 21-question measure assessed the willingness, desire, and frequency of putting a partner’s needs above one’s own (e.g., “I spend a lot of time concerned about the well-being of my partner”). Responses ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and an overall mean score was computed. This measure has shown high levels of internal consistency and good convergent and discriminant validity (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). Reliability for this measure was excellent at both time points (husbands: α = .93, .94; wives: α = .95, .96).

To capture spouse-reported compassionate love toward a spouse, participants completed the compassionate love task at Wave 1. Spouses were asked to share “a time when you felt your spouse put your needs ahead of their own,” an operationalization of compassionate love stemming from Underwood’s (2002, 2009) conceptualization of compassionate love. Spouses were asked to describe to the experimenter what their spouse did, how it made them feel, and if they had told their spouse how they felt. To be consistent with the other interaction tasks in the interview, spouses completed this task in a room together. The average duration of the task was 4 min (SD = 2.6 min). The task was video recorded and later coded for spouse-reported compassionate love. Two coders were trained on a subsample of video recordings until interobserver agreement was above 80%.

Based on the content of the individual’s memory of his/her spouse, participants were coded based on how compassionately loving they sounded according to the memory shared by the spouse. Compassionate love was defined by the kindness, sensitivity, and love that an individual showed toward the spouse, especially in placing the spouse’s needs above one’s own. Both the frequency and meaningfulness of the compassionate love described in the memory were included in the scoring of this code. Upon developing the codebook, a 4-point scale was found to the most reliable for capturing compassionate love. A score of “1” indicated that the individual sounded not at all to minimally compassionate, suggesting that the individual never to rarely shows meaningful compassionate love (e.g., “I don’t know the answer to that one”). A score of “2” indicated the individual sounded modestly compassionate, occasionally demonstrating compassionate love toward the spouse and/or showing it in a less meaningful way (e.g., “She does some of the yard work”). A score of “3” indicated that the individual sounded as though they regularly show compassionate love toward their spouse and/or compassionate love is demonstrated in a meaningful way (e.g., “He really helped take care of the kids while they were growing up and it was really special”). A score of “4” indicated that the individual always shows compassionate love toward the spouse and/or it is demonstrated in an extremely meaningful way (e.g., “She gave up so much to move around the country for my job. She never complained and did so much for our family. It meant everything to me and I am so thankful for her”). Interrater reliability was good (r = .72, p < .001 for husbands; r = .86, p < .001 for wives).

Health

Participants reported at Wave 1 if they had ever been diagnosed by their doctor with any of the following diseases/conditions: heart trouble, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, asthma, stroke, lung disease, stomach problems/ulcers, leg problems, back problems, and depression. Affirmative responses were summed to create a total doctor-diagnosed disease score that ranged from 0 to 11, with higher scores indicating poorer health. This approach to assessing chronic conditions is a well-validated indicator of older adults’ health (Hodes & Suzman, 2007).

Attachment avoidance

Participants completed the Experiences in Close Relationships-Short Form (Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007) at Wave 1 to assess relationship-specific attachment avoidance. The 6-item avoidance subscale included items such as “I want to get close to my partner, but I keep pulling back” and “I usually discuss my problems and concerns with my partner.” Items were rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Reliability for this measure was acceptable (husbands: α =.78; wives: α = .66).

Data analyses

A series of APIM (Kashy & Kenny, 2000) using Mplus version 6.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 2007) was fit to examine rank-order change for husbands’ and wives’ self-reported compassionate love over time and to determine if spouse-reported compassionate love, health, and attachment avoidance each predicted those changes. APIMs account for the interdependence of the couples and enable a simultaneous examination of both within- and between-spouse pathways (Cook & Kenny, 2005). The within-spouse pathways, or actor effects, indicated the extent to which husbands’ and wives’ compassionate love was predicted by their own compassionate love, health, and attachment avoidance. The between-spouse pathways, or partner effects, showed how the compassionate love, health, and attachment avoidance of one’s spouse affected one’s own compassionate love. A series of Δχ² tests was used to test for sex differences in the actor and partner effects for each model. Models were fit separately for compassionate love health and attachment avoidance as predictors due to the modest sample size limiting model estimation (i.e., n:q rule; Jackson, 2003).

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations are presented in Table 1. Overall, husbands and wives reported high levels of self-reported compassionate love at Waves 1 and 2 (M_H = 4.47, 4.41, respectively; M_W = 4.44, 4.32, respectively). Corroborating these self-reports, spouses were observed to be similarly high on spouse-reported compassionate love at Wave 1 (M_H = 3.11; M_W = 3.17). Paired sample t tests indicated no spousal differences on any of the study variables, but showed small, yet significant declines in mean levels of self-reported compassionate love from Wave 1 to Wave 2 for both husbands, t(54) = −2.69, p < .05, and wives, t(54) = −3.07, p < .01. A closer examination of the data revealed that nearly two thirds of the sample (n = 35 and 34 of 55 wives and husbands, respectively) declined in their self-reported compassionate love over time. The drop in compassionate love scores was approximately two thirds of an SD on average for wives and husbands. Correlations indicated various positive links between husbands’ and wives’ self and spouse-reported compassionate love toward their spouse at and across both waves. Looking at the potential antecedents of compassionate love, there were no significant correlations between husbands’ and wives’ health and any of the measures of compassionate love for either spouse. Negative correlations, however, were found between wives’ attachment avoidance and both spouses’ self- and spouse-reported compassionate love—the more attachment avoidance reported by wives, the less compassionate love reported by husbands and wives at both waves.

Table 1.

Descriptives and correlations for husbands’ and wives’ compassionate love (CL), health, and attachment avoidance at Waves 1 and 2.

	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.	9.	10.
1. Husband CL self-report—Wave 1	—
2. Wife CL self-report—Wave 1	.45**	—
3. Husband CL spouse-report—Wave 1	.20	.07	—
4. Wife CL spouse-report—Wave 1	.14	.34**	.43**	—
5. Husband CL self-report—Wave 2	.82**	.44**	.27*	.17	—
6. Wife CL self-report—Wave 2	.32*	.77**	.35*	.36**	.39**	—
7. Husband health—Wave 1	−.06	−.23	.01	.01	.04	.07	—
8. Wife health—Wave 1	.06	−.18	.02	−.04	.05	−.05	.14	—
9. Husband attachment avoidance—Wave 1	−.32*	−.15	−.11	−.08	−.25	−.01	.06	−.12	—
10. Wife attachment avoidance—Wave 1	−.27*	−.67**	−.34**	−.48**	−.36**	−.62**	.16	.31*	.23	—
M	4.47	4.44	3.11	3.17	4.41	4.32	2.33	2.41	1.78	1.71
SD	.38	.54	.92	.77	.45	.59	1.59	1.70	.67	.71

*p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01.

Findings for the predictors of compassionate love

A series of three APIM (Kashy & Kenny, 2000) was fit to examine the links between self- and spouse-reported compassionate love toward a spouse and the predictors of health and attachment avoidance. In line with recommendations for fitting APIMs with distinguishable dyads (Peugh, DiLillo, & Panuzio, 2013), all models were fully saturated and thus demonstrated perfect fit, χ² = .00, df = 0; comparative fit index = 1.00; Tucker–Lewis index = 1.00; root mean square error of approximation = .00. For APIMs, standardized regression coefficients can functionally serve as effect sizes with .1 as small, .3 as moderate, and .5 as large, and these are included in the figures.

To examine compassionate love over time, a model was fit with self- and spouse-reported compassionate love at Wave 1 predicting self-reported compassionate love at Wave 2 (see Figure 1). Looking first at the concurrent links, wives’ self-reported compassionate love at Wave 1 was positively related to both husbands’ self-reported compassionate love at Wave 1 and their own spouse-reported compassionate love. Wives’ and husbands’ spouse-reported compassionate love were positively linked as well. When examining compassionate love over time, actor effects for husbands’ and wives’ self-reported compassionate love were both significant. That is, husbands’ and wives’ self-reported compassionate love at Wave 2 were strongly positively predicted by their own but not their spouses’ self-reported compassionate love at Wave 1. In addition, one partner effect emerged, whereby husbands’ spouse-reported compassionate love predicted increases in wives’ self-reported compassionate love over time. The more wives describe their husbands as compassionately loving, the more wives reported their compassionate love for their husbands increasing over time. The Δχ² tests indicated no spousal differences in actor or partner effects for either self- or spouse-reported compassionate love concurrently or over time.

Figure 1.

APIM examining husbands’ and wives’ self- and spouse-reported compassionate love at Waves 1 and 2. Note. Only significant pathways are shown with unstandardized path coefficients and standardized coefficients in parentheses (χ² = .00, df = 0; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00; RMSEA = .00). APIM = actor–partner interdependence model, CFI = comparative fit index, TLI = Tucker–Lewis index, RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation. *p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01.

To examine potential antecedents of compassionate love, the second model included husbands’ and wives’ health at Wave 1 as a predictor of self-reported compassionate love at Wave 2, controlling for the effects of both self- and spouse-reported compassionate love at Wave 1 (see Figure 2). Husbands’ health was positively associated with increases in wives’ self-reported compassionate love over time, such that the poorer health the husband reported at Wave 1, the greater the increase of wives’ own report of compassionate love. No concurrent links were detected between compassionate love and health at Wave 1 either within or across spouses. Δχ² Tests revealed that the positive link between husbands’ health at Wave 1 and wives’ self-reported compassionate love at Wave 2 was stronger than the positive link between wives’ health at Wave 1 and husbands’ compassionate love at Wave 2, Δχ²(1) = 3.54, p = .05.

Figure 2.

APIM examining husbands’ and wives’ health and self- and spouse-reported compassionate love at Waves 1 and 2. Note. Only significant pathways are shown with unstandardized path coefficients and standardized coefficients in parentheses (χ² = .00, df = 0; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00; RMSEA = .00). APIM = actor–partner interdependence model, CFI = comparative fit index, TLI = Tucker–Lewis index, RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation. *p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01.

The final model examined if relationship-specific attachment avoidance predicted self-reported compassionate love at Wave 2, controlling for self- and spouse-reported compassionate love at Wave 1 (see Figure 3). Although the pattern of results for self- and spouse-reported compassionate love was similar to those found in previous models, how compassionately loving husbands were described at Wave 1 was not related to wives’ Wave 2 self-reports. Wives’ attachment avoidance was negatively related to all four reports of compassionate love, whereas husbands’ attachment avoidance was only negatively associated with their own self-reported compassionate love. The negative link between wives’ attachment avoidance and wives’ self-reported compassionate love was stronger than the negative link between husbands’ attachment avoidance and husbands’ self-reported compassionate love, Δχ²(1) = 9.14, p = .002. Wives’ attachment avoidance to wives’ spouse-reported compassionate love was also marginally stronger than husbands’ attachment avoidance to husbands’ spouse-reported compassionate love, Δχ²(1) = 3.52, p = .06. Only wives’ attachment avoidance was predictive of less self-reported compassionate love for husbands a year later, and this path was stronger than the path between husbands’ attachment avoidance and wives’ later self-reported compassionate love, Δχ²(1) = 5.13, p = .03.

Figure 3.

APIM examining husbands’ and wives’ attachment avoidance and self- and spouse-reported compassionate love at Waves 1 and 2. Note. Only significant pathways are shown with unstandardized path coefficients and standardized coefficients in parentheses (χ² = .00, df = 0; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00; RMSEA = .00). APIM = actor–partner interdependence model; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker–Lewis index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation. *p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01.

Discussion

Given the rise in the proportion of older adults in the United States and the importance of spouses in dealing with age-related health challenges, knowing the course of compassionate love and relevant factors is crucial (Bookwala, 2005; Carr, Freedman, Cornman, & Schwarz, 2014; Iveniuk, Waite, Laumann, McClintock, & Tiedt, 2014). The increasing health problems older couples face provide both opportunities and challenges for spouses to feel and demonstrate care for each other. Offering a potential challenge, however, to the provision of such care is preliminary findings here suggesting a modest decline in many husbands’ and wives’ self-reported compassionate love toward their spouses over a year. It is important to note, however, that husbands’ poor health was linked to greater compassionate love over time for wives. A more robust but negative association emerged between relationship-specific attachment avoidance and the experience of and changes in compassionate love. The decline of compassionate love and the potentially detrimental impact of attachment avoidance raise some concerns for older married adults in light of findings suggesting that compassionate love may protect caregivers from the oft-experienced burdens of caring for an ill or dependent spouse (Roberts et al., 2009).

Declines in compassionate love over two waves: Unexpected but not unfounded

Although older husbands and wives reported high levels of compassionate love toward their spouses across both waves, compassionate love significantly decreased over a year period for both spouses. These decreases were relatively modest—about a fourth of an SD for both husbands and wives—but are notable as even declines this small were unexpected given that Underwood’s (2009) model predicts increases in compassionate love over time within healthy relationships. Declines in compassionate love are also surprising considering that compassionate love is related to positive emotional experience (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005), and older adults report more positive emotions compared to younger adults (Carstensen et al., 2011; Stone, Schwartz, Broderick, & Deaton, 2010). The fact that compassionate love among older adults and couples was expected to at least remain stable if not increase over time underscores the importance of this first examination of the course of compassionate love.

This decrease is perhaps less unexpected when considering similar declines of other types of love, as both romantic and companionate love have been found to gradually decrease over the course of a relationship (Hatfield, Pillemer, O’Brien, & Le, 2008). There are few longitudinal studies, however, that have documented changes in any form of love over time (Berscheid, 2010). These few studies reveal tremendous variability in love across the life span that seems to depend on the type and assessment of love being examined (Acevedo & Aron, 2009; Berscheid, 2010; Sprecher, 1999). For example, even though most types of love decline over time, adults appear to report more altruistic love as they age (Smith, 2009). The declines in compassionate love in this study then may or may not be a result of a normative aging or developmental process. For example, one alternative explanation might be, given the high religiousness of the sample, a religious norming or social desirability effect at Wave 1 that lessened over time (Malhotra, 2010). Given the high functioning nature of the sample, it is also conceivable that the decline in compassionate love found here could be a function of a statistical regression to the mean. Thus, the typical course of compassionate love is somewhat unclear, suggesting that more work is needed to determine how generalizable this downward trajectory of compassionate love over time is among older adults, particularly as our own results suggest that it did not characterize all the spouses in the current sample.

Even though compassionate love decreased slightly over time, it was stable in rank-order change, meaning that husbands and wives who reported more compassionate love earlier were likely to report similarly high levels a year later. Yet, the aggregate-level decline in compassionate love is concerning due to the growing need for spouses to provide care as older adults face more health challenges and eventually greater dependency (Hodes & Suzman, 2007). As older adults experience poorer health, they often turn to and rely on their spouse (Lima et al., 2008). Although turning to the spouse is beneficial, it is not without its challenges for the individuals and for the relationship (Burton, Zdaniuk, Schulz, Jackson, & Hirsch, 2003; Carretero, Garces, Rodenas, & Sanjose, 2009). Such strain of a gradual increase in spousal caregiving among the couples in this sample may even be partially responsible for the declines in compassionate love found here. Alternatively, compassionate love may protect against these common adverse effects, as it plays a role in helping older adults deal with a spouse’s health concerns (Roberts et al., 2009; Sabey et al., 2016). If compassionate love continues to decrease over time for many older couples, husbands and wives may be less motivated to feel and provide the needed care for their spouses. On the other hand, the finding that wives appeared to feel more compassionate love in response to their husbands’ prior poor health suggests that they continue to be responsive. Such findings may help explain why some studies find that men derive greater health benefits from marriage than their wives (Monin & Clark, 2011). Thus, understanding why compassionate love might be decreasing among older couples even when spouses are attending to each other’s needs represents an important next step for this area.

The nuanced role of sex: Similar in experience, different in antecedents

Although Underwood (2009) suggested that a variety of individual, relational, and situational factors influence the experience and development of compassionate love, we found limited evidence for the individual factor of sex. Consistent with previous studies on younger samples (Fehr et al., 2014), husbands and wives reported similar levels of self- and spouse-reported compassionate love toward their spouses at both waves. This lack of sex differences among older adults is consistent with literature that suggests that sex differences become more muted later in life (Sinnott, 1984), with men, in particular, becoming more androgynous over time (Strough, Leszcynski, Neely, Flinn, & Margrett, 2007). However, the lack of evidence for spousal differences may be a result of lower statistical power due to the modest sample size and further research is needed to confirm the similarities of compassionate love among older spouses.

Husbands and wives may have been similar in their overall experiences of compassionate love, but the antecedents of this love were less uniform. As diminishing health is a key challenge facing older couples (Saint Onge, Krueger, & Rogers, 2014), scholars have suggested that poor health may inspire compassionate love (Collins et al., 2014; Rauer et al., 2014; Schulz et al., 2007). On the other hand, poor health is associated with poorer relationship quality (Korporaal, van Groenou, & van Tilburg, 2013; Wickrama, Lorenz, Conger, & Elder, 1997). Our findings appeared to align more with the former thesis, such that wives reported greater compassionate love over time when their husbands had poorer health. The declines in compassionate love might have in fact been larger and more pervasive across the sample if wives had not been inspired by their husbands’ health challenges.

As to what appears influential for husbands’ experience of compassionate love, wives’ attachment avoidance was strongly, albeit negatively, related to both spouses’ compassionate love. As to why wives’ attachment avoidance played such a key role, it may be because wives’ attachment avoidance within older, more traditional couples is less familiar for both spouses (Land, Rochlen, & Vaughn, 2011) and thus more concerning. In contrast, given that attachment avoidance is more common among males (Del Giudice, 2011; Johnson & Greenman, 2006; Levy & Kelly, 2010), husbands are perhaps more likely to be negatively affected by their wives’ avoidance than vice versa because feeling disconnected from them is different from what they may have experienced in the past (Li & Fung, 2014). This unexpected emotional withdrawal could then be relationally worrisome and thus negatively affect spouses’ feelings of compassionate love.

The negative links between attachment avoidance and one’s own compassionate love are consistent with work showing that avoidance predicted less compassionate love among college students (Sprecher & Fehr, 2011). If a husband or wife is less emotionally available or invested in the marriage, it follows that it would be more difficult to feel and demonstrate compassionate love—a problem given that attachment avoidance has been found to more prevalent among older adults (Cicirelli, 2010; Fiori, Consedine, & Magai, 2009; Van Assche et al., 2013). Several explanations have been offered for this trend, including that it is an adaptive response as older adults deal with more loss or a cohort effect of older adults who experienced less affectionate parenting (Magai, 2008). Less has been done to examine whether this pattern persists within the context of long-term relationships (Lee & Montelongo, 2016; Van Assche et al., 2013). In light of the findings here and the importance of relationship-specific attachment security for healthy relationships (Magai, 2008; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007), further research is needed to understand the role of attachment avoidance in later-life marriages, especially among more diverse samples of older couples.

Strengths and limitations

The findings of this study should be viewed within the context of its multiple strengths and limitations. First, the dyadic focus on older couples represents offers important insight into how compassionate love may be unique among older adults and within long-term relationships (Berscheid, 2010). Second, utilizing a multimethod assessment of compassionate love bolstered conclusions about the course of compassionate love over time and its predictors. Finally, this is the first study to date to assess compassionate love over an extended period, enabling us to detect the declines in compassionate love that were found here over a year.

This study also has limitations that suggest caution when interpreting the findings. First, the higher functioning nature of the sample may have resulted in limited variability, preventing identification of predictors that may exist within the larger population of couples. Couples here reported generally good health, high levels of compassionate love, and low levels of attachment avoidance. Couples facing more severe health challenges, for example, may be more likely to have their health affect their ability to feel and demonstrate compassionate love (Berscheid, 2010). Also, couples married for a shorter duration may not have earned the attachment security that is reported here yet and so the role of attachment avoidance may be even greater among such couples.

Second, considering Underwood’s (2009) model of compassionate love, there are assuredly other individual, relational, and situational variables that affect the experience of compassionate love over time. Given the goals of the larger study and the modest sample size, we were limited in the type and number of variables that we could examine in this preliminary study of compassionate love among older couples. Regarding other situational variables, support from others outside the marital relationship (e.g., friends, children) could significantly impact the support and care (i.e., compassionate love) provided within the relationship. Broader cultural or historical influences (e.g., religiousness, cohort effects) may also shape the experience and development of compassionate love and warrant future consideration. Finally, although the attachment avoidance variable was relationship-specific, examining additional relational factors would provide a clearer picture on how relational dynamics influence the experience of compassionate love.

Third, the couples in this study were all heterosexual and predominately European American, well-educated, and financially stable. These contextual factors likely shape the experience of compassionate love, and so it may develop differently and have other antecedents among more diverse couples (e.g., race, socioeconomic status; Underwood, 2009). This may be particularly true with regard to the association between compassionate love and attachment avoidance, as older adults’ attachment security has been found to differ according to race and ethnicity (Fiori et al., 2009; Montague et al., 2003). For example, these ethnic differences may be more normative in other cultures (e.g., Haitians report higher rates of avoidance), which could perhaps mitigate the negative associations found here. Additionally, aging gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals often experience poorer health compared to their heterosexual counterparts, and there is some recent evidence of this among older adults in cohabiting relationships (Gonzales & Henning-Smith, 2015). This disparity, along with the potential greater need for compassionate love within same-sex couples due to external discrimination, could lead to different associations between health and compassionate love than those found here. Thus, additional research with older couples who are less homogenous with regard to the study variables (e.g., compassionate love, health) and personal and couple demographics (e.g., race, education) is needed to better understand the associations examined here.

Conclusion

Given the increasing prevalence of older couples in the U.S. (U.S. Census, 2014) and the role of compassionate love for healthy close relationships (Fehr et al., 2014), further research on compassionate love toward a spouse over a longer period is needed to determine whether the downward trend found here persists within late-life marriages for the majority of older spouses. As this study assessed compassionate love within generally healthy and satisfied couples, these findings here perhaps represent the ideal experience for couples at this stage of life. To provide a more comprehensive picture of the provision of compassionate love, researchers could also consider how compassionate love might function differently within more distressed family contexts. This may be particularly relevant as older couples face more serious health challenges and thus require more spousal caregiving. Providing such intensive care for a spouse can be challenging and spouses can experience compassion burnout (Monin & Schulz, 2009). However, to the extent that spouses experience compassionate love in the midst of such stressful situations, these loving experiences could protect them from the potential negative effects of those situations (Werner, 2013). In conclusion, it is critical to understand the nature and course of compassionate love within both healthy and more distressed couples, as such efforts would provide valuable insight into how to foster compassionate love for couples within a variety of family contexts.

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the couples for their participation.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by grants to the second author from the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and the John E. Fetzer Institute.

Note

References

Acevedo

B. P.

Aron

(2009). Does a long-term relationship kill romantic love? Review of General Psychology, 13, 59–65.

Berscheid

(2010). Love in the fourth dimension. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 1–25.

Bookwala

(2005). The role of marital quality in physical health during the mature years. Journal of Aging and Health, 17, 85–104.

Burton

L. C.

Zdaniuk

Schulz

Jackson

Hirsch

(2003). Transitions in spousal caregiving. The Gerontologist, 43, 230–241.

Carr

Freedman

V. A.

Cornman

J. C.

Schwarz

(2014). Happy marriage, happy life? Marital quality and subjective well-being in later life. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 930–948.

Carstensen

L. L.

Turan

Scheibe

Ram

Ersner-Hershfield

Samanez-Larkin

G. R.

… Nesselroade

J. R.

(2011). Emotional experience improves with age: Evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling. Psychology and Aging, 26, 21–33.

Carretero

Garcés

Ródenas

Sanjosé

(2009). The informal caregiver’s burden of dependent people: Theory and empirical review. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 49, 74–79.

Cicirelli

V. G.

(2010). Attachment relationships in old age. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27, 191–199.

Clark

M. S.

Monin

J. K.

(2006). Giving and receiving communal responsiveness as love. In Sternberg

R. J.

Weis

(Eds.), The new psychology of love (pp. 200–221). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

10.

Collins

N. L.

Ford

M. B.

(2010). Responding to the needs of others: The caregiving behavioral system in intimate relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27, 235–244.

11.

Collins

N. L.

Kane

H. S.

Metz

M. A.

Cleveland

Khan

Winczewski

… Prok

(2014). Psychological, physiological, and behavioral responses to a partner in need: The role of compassionate love. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 31, 601–629.

12.

Cook

W. L.

Kenny

D. A.

(2005). The actor–partner interdependence model: A model of bidirectional effects in developmental studies. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 29, 101–109.

13.

Del Giudice

(2011). Sex differences in romantic attachment: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 193–214.

14.

Feeney

J. A.

Hohaus

(2001). Attachment and spousal caregiving. Personal Relationships, 8, 21–39.

15.

Fehr

Harasymchuk

Sprecher

(2014). Compassionate love in romantic relationships: A review and some new findings. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 31, 575–600.

16.

Fiori

K. L.

Consedine

N. S.

Magai

(2009). Late life attachment in context: Patterns of relating among men and women from seven ethnic groups. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 24, 121–141.

17.

Gonzales

Henning-Smith

(2015). Disparities in health and disability among older adults in same-sex cohabiting relationships. Journal of Aging and Health, 27, 432–453.

18.

Hatfield

E. C.

Pillemer

J. T.

O’Brien

M. U.

Y. C. L.

(2008). The endurance of love: Passionate and companionate love in newlywed and long-term marriages. Interpersona, 2, 35–64.

19.

Hodes

R.J.

Suzman

(2007). Growing older in America: The health and retirement study. Bethesda, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

20.

Iveniuk

Waite

L. J.

Laumann

McClintock

M. K.

Tiedt

A. D.

(2014). Marital conflict in older couples: Positivity, personality, and health. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 130–144.

21.

Jackson

D. L.

(2003). Revisiting sample size and number of parameter estimates: Some support for the N:q hypothesis. Structural Equation Modeling, 10, 128–141.

22.

Johnson

S. M.

Greenman

P. S.

(2006). The path to a secure bond: Emotionally focused couple therapy. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62, 597–609.

23.

Kashy

D. A.

Kenny

D. A.

(2000). The analysis of data from dyads and groups. In Reis

H. T.

Judd

C. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 451–477). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

24.

Kiecolt-Glaser

J. K.

Newton

T. L.

(2001). Marriage and health: His and hers. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 472–503.

25.

King

D. E.

Matheson

Chirina

Shankar

Broman-Fulks

(2013). The status of Baby Boomers’ health in the United States the healthiest generation? JAMA: Internal Medicine, 173, 385–386.

26.

Korporaal

van Groenou

M. I. B.

van Tilburg

T. G.

(2013). Health problems and marital satisfaction among older couples. Journal of Aging and Health, 25, 1279–1298.

27.

Land

L. N.

Rochlen

A. B.

Vaughn

B. K.

(2011). Correlates of adult attachment avoidance: Men’s avoidance of intimacy in romantic relationships. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 12, 64–76.

28.

Lee

J. Y.

Montelongo

(2016). Caregiving and care-receiving in transition to older adulthood: Integrating an attachment theory perspective. Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging, 28, 200–218.

29.

Levy

K. N.

Kelly

K. M.

(2010). Sex differences in jealousy: A contribution from attachment theory. Psychological Science, 21, 168–173.

30.

Fung

H. H.

(2014). How avoidant attachment influences subjective well-being: An investigation about the age and gender differences. Aging & Mental Health, 18, 4–10.

31.

Lima

J. C.

Allen

S. M.

Goldscheider

Intrator

(2008). Spousal caregiving in late midlife versus older ages: Implications of work and family obligations. The Journal of Gerontology: Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 63B, S229–S238.

32.

Magai

(2008). Attachment in middle and later life. In Cassidy

Shaver

P. R.

, (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (2nd ed., pp. 532–551). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

33.

Magai

Cohen

Milburn

Thorpe

McPherson

Peralta

(2001). Attachment styles in older European American and African American adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 56B, S28–S35.

34.

Malhotra

(2010). (When) are religious people nicer? Religious salience and the ‘Sunday effect’ on pro-social behavior. Judgment and Decision Making, 5, 138–143.

35.

Mikulincer

Shaver

P. R.

(2007). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

36.

Mikulincer

Shaver

P. R.

Gillath

(2009). A behavioral systems perspective on compassionate love. In Fehr

Sprecher

Underwood

L. G.

(Eds.), The science of compassionate love: Theory, research, and applications (pp. 225–256). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

37.

Monin

J. K.

Clark

M. S.

(2011). Why do men benefit more from marriage than do women? Thinking more broadly about interpersonal processes that occur within and outside of marriage. Sex Roles, 65, 320–326.

38.

Monin

J. K.

Schulz

(2009). Interpersonal effects of suffering in older adult caregiving relationships. Psychology and Aging, 24, 681–695.

39.

Montague

D. F.

Magai

Consedine

N. S.

Gillespie

(2003). Attachment in African American and European American older adults: The roles of early life socialization and religiosity. Attachment & Human Development, 5, 188–214.

40.

Muthén

L. K.

Muthén

B. O.

(2007). Mplus statistical software. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.

41.

Peugh

J. L.

DiLillo

Panuzio

(2013). Analyzing mixed-dyadic data using structural equation models. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 20, 314–337.

42.

Rauer

A. J.

Sabey

Jensen

J. F.

(2014). Growing old together: Compassionate love and health in older adulthood. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 31, 677–696.

43.

Reis

H. T.

Maniaci

M. R.

Rogge

R. D.

(2014). The expression of compassionate love in everyday compassionate acts. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 31, 651–676.

44.

Roberts

L. J.

Wise

DuBenske

L. L.

(2009). Compassionate family caregiving in the light and shadow of death. In Fehr

Sprecher

Underwood

L. G.

(Eds.), The science of compassionate love: Theory, research, and applications (pp. 311–344). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

45.

Ross

L. R.

Spinner

(2001). General and specific attachment representations in adulthood: Is there a relationship? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 18, 747–766.

46.

Sabey

A. K.

Rauer

A. J.

Haselschwerdt

M. L.

(2016). “It’s not just words coming from the mouth”: The nature of compassionate love among older couples. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 33, 640–665.

47.

Sabey

A. K.

Rauer

A. J.

Jensen

J. F.

(2014). Compassionate love as a mechanism linking sacred qualities of marriage to older couples’ marital satisfaction. Journal of Family Psychology, 28, 594–603.

48.

Saint Onge

J. M.

Krueger

P. M.

Rogers

R. G.

(2014). The relationship between major depression and nonsuicide mortality for US adults: The importance of health behaviors. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 69, 622–632.

49.

Schulz

Hebert

R. S.

Dew

M. A.

Brown

S. L.

Scheier

M. F.

Beach

S. R.

… Gitlin

L. N.

(2007). Patient suffering and caregiver compassion: New opportunities for research, practice, and policy. The Gerontologist, 47, 4–13.

50.

Sinnott

J. D.

(1984). Older men, older women: Are their perceived sex roles similar? Sex Roles, 10, 847–856.

51.

Slatcher

R. B.

(2010). Marital functioning and physical health: Implications for social and personality psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 455–469.

52.

Smith

T. W.

(2009). Loving and caring in the United States: Trends and correlates of empathy, altruism, and related constructs. In Fehr

Sprecher

Underwood

L. G.

(Eds.), The science of compassionate love: Theory, research, and applications (pp. 79–119). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

53.

Sprecher

(1999). “I love you more today than yesterday”: Romantic partners’ perceptions of changes in love and related affect over time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 46–53.

54.

Sprecher

Fehr

(2005). Compassionate love for close others and humanity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22, 629–651.

55.

Sprecher

Fehr

(2011). Dispositional attachment and relationship-specific attachment as predictors of compassionate love for a partner. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 28, 558–574.

56.

Stone

A. A.

Schwartz

J. E.

Broderick

J. E.

Deaton

(2010). A snapshot of the age distribution of psychological well-being in the United States. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107, 9985–9990.

57.

Strazdins

Broom

D. H.

(2004). Acts of love (and work) gender imbalance in emotional work and women’s psychological distress. Journal of Family Issues, 25, 356–378.

58.

Strough

Leszczynski

J. P.

Neely

T. L.

Flinn

J. A.

Margrett

(2007). From adolescence to later adulthood: Femininity, masculinity, and androgyny in six age groups. Sex Roles, 57, 385–396.

59.

Taylor

S. E.

(2006). Tend and befriend: Biobehavioral bases of affiliation under stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 273–277.

60.

Underwood

L. G.

(2002). The human experience of compassionate love: Conceptual mapping and data from selected studies. In Post

S. G.

Underwood

L. G.

Schloss

J. P.

Hurlbut

W. B.

(Eds.), Altruism & altruistic love: Science, philosophy, & religion in dialogue (pp. 72–88). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

61.

Underwood

L. G.

(2009). Compassionate love: A framework for research. In Fehr

Sprecher

Underwood

L. G.

(Eds.), The science of compassionate love: Theory, research, and applications (pp. 3–25). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

62.

U.S. Census. (2014). An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United States. Current Population Reports. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p25-1140.pdf

63.

Van Assche

Luyten

Bruffaerts

Persoons

van de Ven

Vandenbulcke

(2013). Attachment in old age: Theoretical assumptions, empirical findings and implications for clinical practice. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 67–81.

64.

Wei

Russell

D. W.

Mallinckrodt

Vogel

D. L.

(2007). The Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (ECR)-Short Form: Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88, 187–204.

65.

Werner

E. E.

(2013). What can we learn about resilience from large-scale longitudinal studies? In Goldstein

Brooks

R. B.

(Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children (pp. 87–102). New York, NY: Springer.

66.

Wickrama

K. A. S.

Lorenz

F. O.

Conger

R. D.

Elder

G. H.

Jr (1997). Marital quality and physical illness: A latent growth curve analysis. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 59, 143–155.

67.

Zhang

Labouvie-Vief

(2004). Stability and fluctuation in adult attachment style over a 6-year period. Attachment & Human Development, 6, 419–437.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB