What’s Love Got To Do With It?: Social Functioning, Perceived Health, and Daily Happiness in Married Octogenarians

Abstract

This study examined day-to-day links between perceived health and happiness and between time spent with others and happiness in 47 older adult couples over an 8-day period. Marital satisfaction and time spent with others were explored as potential moderators of links between health and happiness. For both men and women, hierarchical linear modeling revealed daily links between more time spent with others and greater happiness. Daily links between time spent with one's partner and happiness were strongly moderated by marital satisfaction. For both men and women, marital satisfaction buffered day-to-day links between poorer perceived health and a decline in happiness, but time spent with others did not. This study provides support for the role of marital satisfaction in protecting older adults' happiness from daily fluctuations in perceived physical health and for the influence of social connections in promoting happiness in the lives of older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

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What’s Love Got To Do With It?: Social Functioning, Perceived
Health, and Daily Happiness in Married Octogenarians
Robert J. Waldinger and
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Marc S. Schulz
Bryn Mawr College
Abstract
This study examined day-to-day links between perceived health and happiness and between time
spent with others and happiness in 47 older adult couples over an 8-day period. Marital satisfaction
and time spent with others were explored as potential moderators of links between health and
happiness. For both men and women, hierarchical linear modeling revealed daily links between more
time spent with others and greater happiness. Daily links between time spent with one’s partner and
happiness were strongly moderated by marital satisfaction. For both men and women, marital
satisfaction buffered day-to-day links between poorer perceived health and a decline in happiness,
but time spent with others did not. This study provides support for the role of marital satisfaction in
protecting older adults’ happiness from daily fluctuations in perceived physical health, and for the
influence of social connections in promoting happiness in the lives of older adults.
Keywords
social functioning; aging; marital satisfaction; health; happiness
What’s Love Got To Do With It?: Social Functioning, Perceived Health, and
Daily Happiness in Married Octogenarians
Understanding the determinants of happiness in late life takes on particular urgency as the
population ages. Physical health and social functioning are widely believed to be important
determinants of happiness in old age (Jopp & Rott, 2006). Research has demonstrated links
between perceived physical health and happiness (e.g., Brief, Butcher, George, & Link,
1993) and between social functioning and happiness (Bishop, Martin, & Poon, 2006; Cacioppo
et al., 2008). Studies also suggest that social relationships may moderate the impact of stressors
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert J. Waldinger, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, 1249 Boylston Street – 3rd floor, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, Telephone: (617) 525-6133, rwaldinger@partners.org.
Robert J. Waldinger, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Marc S. Schulz, Department of Psychology,
Bryn Mawr College.
Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting,
fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American
Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript
version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at
www.apa.org/pubs/journals/pag
2A very small percentage of participants’ time was spent with caregivers. Less than 1.3% of their days involved spending 3 hours or
more with caregivers. These data suggest that the overall lack of correlation between percent time with others and happiness was not
likely due to the influence of some participants who appear socially integrated but most of their time with others was actually spent with
a caregiver.
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Published in final edited form as:
Psychol Aging. 2010 June ; 25(2): 422–431. doi:10.1037/a0019087.
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such as physical health problems on emotional well-being (Cohen, 2004). Although perceived
health, social functioning, and happiness may vary from day to day – particularly among older
adults (Milligan, Bingley, & Gatrell, 2005) – prior research in this area has focused almost
exclusively on relatively stable individual differences in these domains and on the longer-term
processes by which they are linked. Using daily reports of the experiences of 47 older adult
married couples across an eight-day period, this study explored ways that daily fluctuations in
social functioning and perceived physical health may be linked with the ebb and flow of
happiness in older adults. In addition to examining direct daily connections among these
factors, we investigated two more sustained aspects of social functioning – time spent with
others and marital satisfaction – as potential moderators of the daily link between perceived
health and levels of happiness. Identifying factors that may buffer older adults from the
demoralizing effects of ill health has the potential to inform efforts to improve the quality of
life for this rapidly growing segment of the population.
Happiness in late life
For some older adults, the physical decline and personal losses associated with old age are
linked with diminished happiness (Bishop, Martin, & Poon, 2006). However, as a group, older
adults report higher levels of subjective well-being and lower levels of depressive
symptomatology than younger adults (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). Studies by
Mroczek and Kolarz (1998) and by Carstensen and colleagues (Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr,
& Nesselroade, 2000) have found modest but consistent increases in happiness from mid- to
late adulthood. More recently, Yang (2008) has replicated these findings in a carefully executed
longitudinal study spanning 33 years, providing evidence that age-related increases in self-
reported levels of happiness are not an artifact of cohort effects. Happiness has often been
conceptualized as a trait; defined, for example, as a “long-term propensity to frequently
experience positive emotions” (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Yet studies have
documented both long- and short-term shifts in levels of happiness (Lucas, 2007; Luo & Inoue,
2000).
Health and happiness
The association of health and positive mood has long been a subject of research interest (e.g.,
Benyamini, Idler, Leventhal, & Leventhal, 2000; e.g., Casten, Lawton, Winter, Kleban, &
Sando, 1997). Although happiness and positive affect are not identical constructs, they are
closely related (Diener, 2000; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). Numerous studies have
documented that when disease severity increases, positive affect, including happiness, declines
(for a review, see Pressman & Cohen, 2005). Particularly among older adults, many chronic
medical conditions have been associated with lower levels of positive affect (Benyamini, Idler,
Leventhal, & Leventhal, 2000; Jelicic & Kempen, 1999). Most of these studies have focused
on enduring levels of positive affect (Pressman & Cohen, 2005). Late life is a time when health
challenges are more prevalent and daily fluctuations in perceived health quite common
(Yorgason, Almeida, Neupert, Spiro, & Hoffman, 2006). Research on younger adults suggests
that health and the experience of positive affect are linked on a daily basis (e.g., Watson,
1988), yet studies of day-to-day associations between health and positive affect among older
adults are lacking.
Empirical associations across individuals between health and emotional well-being are
generally stronger in studies using self-report measures of health than in studies using objective
health ratings by physicians (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). This is likely to be due, in
part, to the finding that individual personality traits such as neuroticism influence the subjective
evaluation of one’s health and in this way contribute to discrepancies between objectively rated
health and subjective reports (Brief, Butcher, George, & Link, 1993). Examining within-
person associations between day-to-day fluctuations in subjective ratings of health and
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happiness, as we do in this study, has the advantage of restricting the role that enduring
personality traits can play in these associations.
Social functioning and happiness
Research has consistently found links between the quantity and quality of interpersonal
connections and late-life well-being. For example, greater participation in social activities and
broader social networks have been linked with higher perceived well-being among older adults
(Heidrich & Ryff, 1993), and the absence of social involvement has been associated with higher
suicide rates (Heisel & Duberstein, 2005). Research has also pointed to positive short-term
influences of interactions with others, including the promotion of more positive psychological
states (Cohen, 1988, 2004; Thoits, 1983).
Studies of links between social functioning and happiness per se are rare. In a study comparing
very happy and very unhappy undergraduate students, Diener and Seligman (2002) found that
very happy people spent significantly less time alone each day and more time socializing than
their unhappy counterparts. Very happy people also had more satisfying social relationships
by their own reports and the reports of informants. Among older adults age 50–68, Cacioppo
and colleagues (2008) found that those who were more socially integrated (e.g., married,
attended church, belonged to organizations) were happier, as were those with broader social
networks as measured by the number of people to whom an individual speaks at least once
every two weeks. In the Aging in Manitoba Study of adults age 67–95 (Menec, 2003), social
activity was found to be the strongest correlate of happiness.
Although the breadth of one’s social network (the number of people with whom one has regular
contact) is often used to quantify interpersonal connections, this index can be especially
misleading in studying older adults. Research suggests that adults’ peripheral social networks
shrink as they age but that the quality of their close relationships improves (Cornwell,
Laumann, & Schumm, 2008; Lang & Carstensen, 1994). This is consistent with Carstensen’s
socioemotional selectivity theory, which posits that a sense of limited time prompts older adults
to shed their less important and less satisfying interpersonal ties as they prioritize emotional
satisfaction in interactions with others (Carstensen, 1993; Frederickson & Carstensen, 1998).
For this reason, happiness in old age might be less related to the number of individuals in one’s
social network than to indices tapping the amount of social contact, such as the amount of time
spent with others each day. We therefore chose to examine time spent with others each day as
an index of the quantity of social participation.
Declines in physical and cognitive functioning create greater need to depend on others, making
the presence and quality of close relationships particularly important in late life. Numerous
studies have documented the health benefits of being married, but typically the variability in
subjective well-being explained by marital status alone is modest – as low as 2% in the meta-
analysis conducted by Haring-Hidore, et al. (1985). Among those who are married, relationship
satisfaction has been found to be an important predictor of health and well-being (Gallo et al.,
2003; Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001). There is evidence that relationship satisfaction may
also moderate links between health and well-being. For example, in a study of marital
satisfaction and depressed mood in late life, Bookwala and Franks (2005) found that older
adults who reported being in more conflictual marriages showed a stronger association between
levels of physical disability and depressed affect. More research is needed to determine whether
the moderating effect of marital satisfaction on links between health and mood is present when
happiness rather than negative affect is the focus.
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The daily fabric of life: The advantages of repeated assessments
Investigations of links among health, emotional well-being, and social functioning have
depended largely on traditional correlational approaches that focus on connections among
relatively stable individual differences in these domains. For example, studies indicate that
people who report more social connectedness in general tend to be better off physically and
emotionally than those who are more socially isolated (e.g., House, Landis, & Umberson,
1988; Lee & Ishii-Kuntz, 1987). However, traditional approaches do not address the question
of whether and how these factors are linked on a short-term basis, which is the time window
in which mechanisms linking social functioning, physical functioning and affective state are
often thought to operate. For example, is spending more time with others on a given day related
to experiencing higher levels of happiness on that day? Does an individual experience greater
happiness on days when he or she feels better physically? Within-person analyses of repeated
daily measures are particularly suited to investigating these short-term processes and linkages
(Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003).
Moreover, links found in traditional approaches that collect self-report data at one point in time
are particularly vulnerable to potentially confounding third variables that may explain a the
connection between the 2 variables of interest. The use of repeated daily assessments
substantially reduces the potential confounds that might account for such links. If two variables
covary on a daily basis, then a confound would have to vary according to the same daily time
course (i.e., the same daily rhythm). So, for example, it is possible that a vulnerability to social
desirability biases prompts some individuals to report generally low levels of physical stressors
and generally high levels of wellbeing. However, if physical stressors and wellbeing are found
to covary within individuals on a day-to-day basis – that is, if individuals experience less
happiness on days when they report poorer physical health and more happiness on days when
they report better health – then a confound would have to vary from daily assessment to daily
assessment in the same way that physical stressors and wellbeing fluctuate from one day to the
next. It is unlikely that a social desirability bias and other commonly identified potential
confounds (e.g., SES) would vary according to such a daily rhythm. Thus, the number of
possible alternative explanations is substantially reduced by the use of repeated daily
assessment and appropriate analytic techniques.
In addition, repeated daily measures can facilitate more accurate assessments of social
experiences and emotional and physical well-being than can be obtained retrospectively using
questionnaires that ask about longer time spans or experience in general (Almeida, Wethington,
& Chandler, 1999; Larson & Almeida, 1999). Many people have difficulty accurately recalling
experiences (Smith, Leffingwell, & Ptacek, 1999), and this is particularly the case among the
very old.
Studies of daily life among the very old are rare. Even rarer are studies that have used repeated
measurements to investigate daily connections among fluctuations in health, social functioning
and happiness. Existing studies suggest that older adults may be particularly vulnerable to daily
challenges. Mroczek and Almeida (2004) found that daily links between stressors and negative
affect were stronger for older individuals (up to age 74) than younger individuals. Recently,
in a study of 96 older couples, Yorgason and colleagues (2006) found that day-to-day variability
in one partner’s health was related to fluctuations in the other’s emotional well-being. However,
they did not examine how day-to-day fluctuations in health affected one’s own emotional well-
being.
In the current study of octogenarian couples, we examined two particularly salient aspects of
perceived health – reported daily levels of pain and perceived degree of physical limitations
on daily activities due to ill health. Two distinct indices of social functioning were examined
as potential moderators of daily links between health and happiness: (1) overall relationship
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satisfaction and (2) the proportion of time typically spent with others each day (and more
specifically, time spent with the spouse). We investigated the following hypotheses about the
role of marital satisfaction, time spent with others, and perceived health in shaping the
happiness of married older adults:
1. On a daily basis, poorer perceived health (as indexed by self-reported levels of pain
and physical limitation) will be associated with reports of less happiness.
2. On a daily basis, a greater proportion of time spent with others will be associated with
reports of greater happiness.
3. Marital satisfaction will moderate links between daily perceived health and happiness,
such that daily links between poorer health and unhappiness will be weaker among
individuals who report greater marital satisfaction.
4. Time spent with others will moderate the daily association between perceived health
and happiness. Generally spending more time with others will buffer older adults from
the daily effect of poorer perceived health on happiness.
Method
Participants
The sample for this study consisted of 47 heterosexual couples. The male participants are part
of a 68-year longitudinal study of adult development that began when they were age 18–19.
Between 1939 and 1942, the Harvard University Health Service chose 268 college sophomores
for intensive multidisciplinary study (Heath, 1945; Vaillant, 1977). These sophomores were
selected because examination at college entrance revealed no mental or physical health
problems, and their deans perceived them as having the potential to become promising adults.
Sixty-four per cent went on to obtain graduate degrees, and many worked throughout their
adult lives in high-prestige occupations. Participants were assessed using interview and
questionnaire techniques at regular intervals. Beginning in 2003, the men and their intimate
partners were invited to participate in a study of late life marriage. One hundred five of the
surviving members of the original sample had partners. To be eligible, couples had to have
been living together for a minimum of one year.1 In addition, both members of the couple had
to score above 25 (indicating minimal or no cognitive impairment) on the Telephone Interview
for Cognitive Status (TICS, Brandt, Spencer, & Folstein, 1988) and be in sufficient physical
health to be able to complete the in-home and follow-up telephone interview procedures
described below. Twenty-six couples were unable to participate because one or both partners
could not complete assessments due to physical or cognitive impairment. Seven couples
completed part but not all of the assessments. One couple was separated and therefore did not
meet the criterion of living together. An additional 24 couples declined to participate. The most
common reason given for refusal was a wish to preserve the privacy of their relationship. T-
tests revealed that the 24 eligible men who declined to participate in the study did not differ
significantly from the 47 men who participated with respect to age, number of years of
education, income at ages 55 and 80, health at age 70 based on internist’s rating of medical
records (for details, see Vaillant, 1979, 1998), number of previous divorces, or marital
satisfaction at ages 75 and 80.
All participants were Caucasian. Mean age was 82.9 years for men (SD =1.7, range 80–88)
and 78.8 years for women (SD = 6.16, range 62–87). Forty-three couples (92%) were married,
and 4 couples (8%) were not married but living together. The mean length of these relationships
1An exception was made to include one couple who had been dating steadily for 5 years and was about to begin living together.
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was 41.5 years (SD = 19, range=1–62). Virtually all of the men had a history of white-collar
employment, and most women worked in the home.
The Human Research Committee affiliated with Brigham and Women’s Hospital approved the
study, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Procedure
A questionnaire assessing marital satisfaction was completed during a home visit that also
included interviews and interaction tasks not examined in this study. Following the home visits,
men and women were interviewed separately by telephone on 8 consecutive evenings.
Telephone interviewers varied across the 8 days and were different from those who collected
data during home visits. Telephone interviewers were unaware of all prior data on participants,
including responses on previous days of telephone interviewing and of their partner’s responses
in interviews. Participants were assured that their responses would remain confidential
(including from their spouses), and participants were asked to be in a location during telephone
interviews where their responses could not be overheard by others. Interviews lasted 15–20
minutes and focused on the participants’ activities during the previous 24 hours. Most
interviews were conducted around the dinner hour each day. The telephone interviews insured
a high rate of questionnaire completion. The mean number of interviews completed by
participants was 7.6 (SD = 0.73).
Measures
Marital satisfaction—Marital satisfaction was measured at the start of the study using the
Short Marital Adjustment Test (Locke & Wallace, 1959), a widely-used 16-item self-report
questionnaire. Respondents are asked to rate the extent to which they and their partners agree
or disagree on common subjects (e.g., sexual relations, handling of family finances), with
additional questions on topics such as how they handle disagreements and how happy they are
overall with their relationship (range “very unhappy” to “perfectly happy”). The measure has
good internal reliability, test-retest stability, and discriminant validity (Freeston & Plechaty,
1997). Higher scores reflect greater satisfaction with the marriage. Scores below 100 are
considered to be indicative of clinically significant marital distress (Christensen & Heavey,
1999; Gottman, 1994).
Time with others—On each of the 8 evenings of daily telephone interviews, participants
were asked, “In the past 24 hours, how much awake time did you spend alone? How much
awake time did you spend with: children, grandchildren, partner, friends or neighbors, church
or other community members, volunteer or work colleagues, non-familial caregivers or
helpers?” There was a strong correlation between spouses’ daily reports of time spent with
each other (r[285] = .52), providing support for the validity of these assessments. The
proportion of awake time spent with others each day was computed by dividing the number of
hours spent with others by the sum of the number of hours spent with others and the number
of hours spent alone. The proportion of awake time spent specifically with partner each day
was computed using a similar formula. To examine the possible role of the amount of time
typically spent with others as a moderator of daily links between perceived health stressors and
emotional well-being, we aggregated the proportion of each person’s waking hours spent with
others across the 8 days into a mean score. The same procedure was used to create an index of
time typically spent with partner.
Happiness—Participants were asked to rate how happy or unhappy they felt during the
previous 24 hours on a 7-point Likert-type scale with the following anchors: 1=very unhappy,
2= moderately unhappy, 3=a little unhappy, 4=neither happy nor unhappy, 5=a little happy,
6=moderately happy, and 7=very happy. Happiness and related constructs (e.g., quality of life)
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are often measured with single items using Likert-type scales (Diener, 2000; Sandvik, Diener,
& Seidlitz, 1993), and there is evidence for the validity and reliability of such single item
measures (Kalmijn & Veenhoven, 2005; Yang, 2008; Zimmerman & Arunkumar, 1994).
Perceived Health—was indexed by two variables – pain, and physical limitation. Pain was
measured each day by asking the participant to rate on an 11-point scale their level of bodily
pain during the previous 24 hours (0=no pain, 10=pain as bad as it can be). This measure is
adapted from the widely used Brief Pain Inventory (Cleeland, 1989). Single item measures of
pain have been found to have adequate validity and reliability (for a review, see Stinson,
Kavanagh, Yamada, Gill, & Stevens, 2006). The degree of physical limitation was measured
each day by asking participants to rate on a 5-point Likert-type scale how much their physical
health hindered their usual daily activities during the previous 24 hours (1=not at all,
5=extremely). Past research suggests that single item measures of physical limitation have
acceptable validity and reliability (e.g., van Oyen, Van der Heyden, Perenboom, & Jagger,
2006).
Data analytic approach
The central questions of this study were whether perceived health and time spent with others
were linked with happiness on a day-to-day basis, and whether marital satisfaction and time
spent with others buffered individuals from the daily impact of poorer perceived health on
happiness. The 8 days of data contributed by participants can be conceptualized at two levels
of analysis: a within-person level (Level 1) that captures daily covariation among time spent
with others, perceived health, and happiness for each person across 8 days, and a between-
person level (Level 2) that captures variability between individuals in these patterns of
covariation. Analyses were conducted using a hierarchical modeling approach that
simultaneously models effects at the within- and between-person levels (Raudenbusch & Bryk,
2002). Because husbands’ and wives’ experiences each day are likely to be related, we
implemented a multivariate extension of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) so that data for
husbands and wives could be analyzed simultaneously (Raudenbush, Brennan, & Barnett,
1995; O'Brien & Peyton, 2002).
Analyses were conducted in two stages. We first examined whether time spent with others and
perceived health were linked with happiness on a daily basis. Separate models were estimated
for each combination of the pain and physical limitation variables and happiness, and for the
two variables indexing time spent with all others and time spent specifically with partner and
happiness. We then investigated whether variations across individuals in within-person
linkages of perceived health and happiness were related to levels of marital satisfaction and
the overall proportion of time spent with others. In this stage of analysis, separate models were
estimated for each combination of the two perceived health variables and happiness, and each
of these models was tested for moderation by marital satisfaction, time spent with others, and
time spent with partner. To facilitate ease of interpretation, marital satisfaction, time spent with
others, and time spent with partner were centered around their respective grand means (for
each gender) in the models.
Following the recommendations of Larson and Almeida (Bolger, Zuckerman, & Kessler,
2000; Larson & Almeida, 1999) we accounted for previous day’s level of happiness when
examining the daily association between time spent with others and happiness. In effect, this
strategy allowed us to examine the potential impact of time spent with others on changes in
happiness from day to day. The Level 1 model for time spent with others and daily happiness
can be written as:
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(1)
where Daily Happinessit is daily happiness on day t (t = days 2 through 8) for the man or woman
in couple i and Daily Happinessit−1 is that participant’s daily happiness from the previous day.
Of particular interest are πf2i and πm2i which capture the predicted change in daily happiness
associated with a one unit increase in time spent with others after controlling for the previous
day’s happiness. The Level 1 parameter estimates were allowed to vary randomly in the Level
2 model. In this first stage of analysis, no predictors were added to the between-subjects level
of the model. In HLM, the Level 1 parameters estimated for each couple are pooled at Level
2 to obtain estimates for the group as a whole. The Level 2 equation for this model investigating
the daily influence of time spent with others can be written as:
(2)
where γf20 and γm20 capture the pooled estimate of the daily association of happiness and time
spent with others. All model estimates were made using the HLM 6 computer program (version
6.06, Raudenbush et al., 2000).
In the first stage of analysis, we began by estimating models in which all of the parameters in
equation 1 (or the equivalent Level 1 model) were free to vary across gender. If a multivariate
test indicated no gender difference in the estimated parameters, we re-estimated the model
while constraining all of the parameters to be equivalent across gender. This approach leads
to a more parsimonious and statistically precise model. In the second stage of analysis, we used
a similar approach, constraining the Level 2 moderators across gender when no differences
were found between men and women.
Results
Daily life for octogenarian couples
These older men and women spent a large majority (more than 70%) of their waking hours
with others and over 50% of their waking hours with their spouses. On average, both men and
women reported spending over 8 hours of their waking time with their partners, but there was
significant variation across individuals. Participants spent less time each day with non-family
members in volunteer activities or with neighbors, and relatively little time with non-family
caregivers. Although women spent more time on average with other people than did men, the
difference amounted to only 5% of waking hours. Men and women did not differ significantly
in the proportion of time they reported spending with their partners.
On average, participants reported relatively low levels of pain and physical limitation across
the 8 days of study (Table 2). They indicated in their daily reports that they were generally
moderately happy. Paired t-tests revealed no significant differences in men’s and women’s
typical reports of happiness, pain, or physical limitation.
In addition to variation between individuals, there was meaningful within-person variation
across the 8 days in levels of time spent with others, perceived physical health, and happiness.
The average man in our sample varied in the number of daily hours spent with others across
the 8 days by 6.6 hours; and the average woman’s time with others varied by more than 5 hours
per day across the 8 days. Similarly, the average man in our sample varied in his level of pain
across the 8 days by 2.6 points on the 11-point pain scale, and the average woman varied in
her level of pain across the 8 days by 1 point (in each case slightly less than 1 standard
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deviation). The average man in our sample varied in the extent to which his daily activities
were hindered by his health by 2.4 points on the 5-point physical hindrance scale over 8 days,
and the average women varied by 1.3 points (in each case more than 2 standard deviations).
Finally, the average man and woman reported that their level of happiness varied by almost 2
points (or slightly more than two standard deviations) on the 7-point happiness scale across
the 8 days.
Participants generally reported being satisfied in their marriages (M = 124 for men and 123 for
women). There was, however, meaningful variability in satisfaction across participants in our
sample (SD for women = 27, SD for men = 22). About 1/6 of participants reported levels of
marital satisfaction characteristic of couples in distress (scores below 100, c.f. Gottman,
1994).
Is time spent with others linked with happiness on a daily basis?
We first examined whether time spent with other people was linked with happiness on a daily
basis. A multivariate test of the preliminary HLM model indicated no gender differences in
the estimated parameters, χ2 (1, N = 47) = .38, p > .5., We therefore re-estimated the model by
constraining all pooled estimates to be equivalent across gender (see Raudenbush & Chan,
1993; Schulz, Cowan, & Cowan, 2006). The results of the re-estimated model indicate
covariation of daily happiness and social interaction for both men and women that approaches
statistical significance (γ = 0.227, t = 3.96, p = .07). Converting the t ratio for this association
into an effect size correlation (reffect = .27)3 indicates that this daily connection between time
spent with others and happiness represents a medium effect (Cohen, 1988).
We also examined whether time spent specifically with partner (as opposed to time spent with
all categories of other people) was linked with happiness on a daily basis. Preliminary modeling
indicated no gender differences, and the final model showed that daily variation in time spent
with partner was, on average, linked with daily fluctuation in happiness for both men and
women at a level approaching statistical significance (γ = −.366, p = .07). However, because
it seemed likely that the association of time spent with a partner and happiness might depend
on one’s marital satisfaction, we re-ran the model with marital satisfaction introduced into the
Level 2 equation as a moderator of daily links between time spent with partner and happiness.
Significant and strong moderation was found for both men and women (γ = .019, p < .001,
reffect = .65), with no gender differences, χ2 (1, N=47) = 1.28, p = .26. Individuals who were
more satisfied with their marriages, as compared to those less satisfied, displayed a more
positive association across days between time spent with partner and their reported happiness.
Do time spent with others and marital satisfaction moderate the daily association of
perceived health and happiness?
We first examined daily links between perceived health and happiness without any moderators
present in the model (see Table 3). For women, reports of both perceived pain and physical
limitation covaried significantly with happiness on a daily basis. As expected, increases in pain
and physical limitation on a given day were associated with less happiness on that same day.
The magnitude of these links was between medium and large. For men, link between reports
of daily physical limitation and happiness approached statistical significance (p = .07).4
3The formula used for converting the t’s into reffect’s was: (see Karney & Bradbury, 1997; Schulz, Cowan,
& Cowan, 2006).
4Additional analyses were run to investigate whether between-subject differences in daily reports of perceived health might influence
the association between daily fluctuations in perceived health and happiness. The average daily reports of pain and physical limitation
were added to the model as Level 2 moderators of daily perceived health and happiness links. No significant connections were found
between average levels of perceived health and daily covariation of perceived health and happiness, indicating that individual differences
in perceived health (including self-reporting biases) could not account for this daily association.
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Next, we investigated whether marital satisfaction or the amount of time typically spent with
others was associated with individual variation in daily links between perceived health and
happiness. We first examined marital satisfaction as a Level 2 moderator of links between
perceived health and happiness. As shown in the top half of Table 4, marital satisfaction was
a consistent moderator of daily connections between perceived health and happiness. There
were no gender differences in these moderating effects (pain: χ2 [1, N=47] = 2.38, p = .12;
physical limitation: χ2 [1, N=47] = 0.08, p > .5), which were large in magnitude.
We explored these interactions further by employing simple slopes analysis (Curran, Bauer,
& Willoughby, 2006; Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). For both men and women, lower
marital satisfaction was associated with a stronger daily negative covariation between pain and
happiness and between physical limitation and happiness. The daily happiness of men
(coefficient = −0.142, t(45) = 2.36, p=.02) and women (coefficient = −0.283, t (45) = 5.78,
p<.001) who reported marital satisfaction 1 S.D. below the average significantly decreased on
days when they also reported pain. For men (coefficient = 0.074, t (45) = 1.13, p=.27) and
women (coefficient = −0.021, t (45) = .36, p=.72) who reported marital satisfaction 1 S.D.
above average, there was no daily connection between pain and happiness. Similarly, simple
slopes analysis of daily hindrance-happiness covariation revealed a negative connection (Men:
coefficient = −0.246, t (45) = 2.92, p<.01; Women: coefficient = −0.462, t (45) = 5.27, p<.001)
for more maritally dissatisfied men and women but not for individuals in more satisfying
relationships (Men: coefficient = 0.061, t (45) = 0.693, p=.49; Women: coefficient = −0.089,
t (45) = 1.02, p=.31).
In contrast to the consistent moderating influence of marital satisfaction, analyses examining
typical levels of time spent with others as a moderator revealed no effects (bottom of Table 4).
That is, generally spending more or less time with others was not associated with differences
across individuals in the degree to which perceived health covaried on a daily basis with reports
of happiness. We did a parallel set of analyses examining whether time spent with partner was
a Level 2 moderator of links between perceived health and happiness. As with time spent with
others in general, there was no indication that time spent with partner moderated links between
perceived health and happiness.
Discussion
This study was designed to investigate the daily experiences of octogenarians and to examine
closely the links among perceived health, social functioning, and happiness in this group of
older adults. By collecting daily reports over 8 days, we were able to assess typical levels of
social interaction, perceived physical health, and happiness and the day-to-day variability in
these variables across this period. We found that these married octogenarians were quite social,
spending on average more than 70% of their waking hours with others and more than half of
their waking hours with their spouses, but that there was significant daily variation in extent
of their social connections. The daily reports indicated that health concerns and difficulties
were indeed a common part of their lives and varied from day to day. Despite the presence of
these health concerns, the participants reported that, on average, they were moderately happy.
We hypothesized (Hypothesis 1) that poorer perceived health on particular days would be
associated with reports of less happiness on those days. This hypothesis was supported,
particularly for women. We found that, on days when women reported less pain and physical
limitation, they reported being happier. For men, the link between less physical limitation and
greater daily happiness approached statistical significance. There was no significant
association for men between daily reports of pain and levels of happiness.
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Based on previous research, we hypothesized that more time spent with others would be linked
with greater happiness on a daily basis (Hypothesis 2). For men and women, multi-level
analyses revealed a link that approached statistical significance between reports of spending
more time with others on a given day and being happier on that day, even after accounting for
level of happiness on the previous day. We also found links between spending time specifically
with partners and happiness that were moderated by how satisfied participants were with their
marriages. For both men and women, being more satisfied in their marriages was strongly
associated with a more positive daily connection between time with partner and levels of
happiness.
We next addressed the question of whether relationships convey some benefit by attenuating
links between reports of poorer health and decreased happiness. As hypothesized (Hypothesis
3), we found a negative daily connection between poorer health and happiness for more
maritally dissatisfied men and women but not for individuals in more satisfying relationships.
Our results suggest that a less satisfying marriage leaves one more vulnerable to the negative
daily impact of health problems on happiness. In contrast to the strong buffering role of marital
satisfaction, neither the typical amount of time spent with others nor the amount of time spent
with partners in particular moderated day-to-day links between perceived health and happiness,
thus failing to confirm the prediction made in Hypothesis 4.
A number of studies have documented the health benefits of being married (Waite & Gallagher,
2000), but it is becoming increasingly clear that relationship satisfaction is a key determinant
of the health benefits of marriage (Bookwala & Franks, 2005; Gallo et al., 2003; Kiecolt-Glaser
& Newton, 2001). Results of this study extend existing findings by documenting the role of
marital satisfaction in protecting happiness from the daily ups and downs of physical health
and by contrasting this protective role with the absence of any moderating influence by time
spent with others. These findings are consistent with results in related domains that distinguish
between the number of social connections and the quality of social connections or available
support. For example, Cohen and Wills (1985) found that the degree to which an individual is
integrated into a broad social network is directly linked with well-being, whereas the perception
that support is available in time of need buffers individuals from the potential adverse effects
of stressors. In our study, a direct link was found between time spent with others each day and
daily happiness, but time spent with others did not exert a buffering influence on links between
daily health fluctuations and happiness. By contrast, marital satisfaction (an index of
relationship quality and arguably of available support) strongly buffered both men and women
from the negative effects of poorer health on happiness. Tugade and Fredrickson (2004)
demonstrated that positive emotions can undo the lingering after-effects of negative emotional
reactivity and restore cardiovascular equilibrium after negative emotional arousal. To the
extent that satisfying marriages are associated with more positive and less negative emotion
even in the face of health difficulties, day-to-day interactions in such marriages may help to
reduce overall emotional and physiological strain. Finally, in a large representative and
somewhat younger sample of older adults (mean age 68.9 years), Mancini and Bonanno
(2006) found that marital closeness moderated the negative effects of functional disability on
increased depression and anxiety and decreased self-esteem.
Important strengths of this study are its collection of repeated daily measures and its use of
multi-level analyses to examine within-person associations across time. Our focus on short-
term, within-person links help narrow the field of likely mechanisms that underlie the
connections between physical health and happiness and between time spent with others and
happiness. For example, associations at the between-subjects level for time spent with others
and happiness tell us that individuals who generally spend more time with others also report
being generally happier. These associations could be due to a number of influences that operate
over time frames that are longer than a week. So, for example, individuals who have generally
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sunny dispositions might also be better at making and maintaining friendships and therefore
spend more time with others. In contrast, our finding of within-person associations between
time spent with others and happiness can only be explained by shorter-term mechanisms that
operate on a day-to-day basis, such as the happiness-enhancing benefit of interacting with
others. Other variables that might vary on a day-to-day basis (e.g., weather) cannot be ruled
out as alternative explanations for this link. However, although more temporally stable
variables such as personality might moderate (i.e., strengthen or weaken) this daily covariation,
they cannot by themselves account for the processes underlying such short-term associations.
Even with the use of daily reports of happiness, social functioning, and health, teasing out the
direction of influence among these variables is difficult. We used recommended procedures to
control for previous day’s level of happiness (Larson & Almeida, 1999) in our analyses
investigating the daily associations among these variables. Such statistical controls, however,
do not allow us to conclude with certainty that happiness is shaped by daily interactions with
others or by fluctuations in perceived levels of pain and physical disability. It is possible that
happiness also shapes the likelihood that one will seek contact with others and the likelihood
that one will report health concerns. There are also personality dimensions (e.g., neuroticism)
that we did not examine that might influence the strength of the daily associations we found
in this study.
Additional study limitations should be noted. The modest sample size of 47 couples restricts
statistical power and may be responsible for some of the null and marginally significant
findings. These 47 couples are the surviving married members of a larger cohort that originally
numbered 268. Although analyses included in this report indicate that these individuals are in
a number of ways representative of the survivors of the original cohort, it is possible that the
survivors have other features that distinguish them in important ways from those who have
already died or who have had relationships that have not endured. For example, the levels of
physical limitations reported in this sample are relatively low and may not be representative
of all octogenarians. Future research using larger samples should examine how physical
mobility and functioning might influence some of the connections examined in this study. The
study sample consisted of socioeconomically advantaged men and women, most of whom came
of age in the WW II era. Further research is needed to determine the extent to which these
findings are generalizable to other ethnic groups, to different social classes, and to different
birth cohorts. It is also important to study how daily social experiences and health difficulties
might be linked with daily happiness in single older adults.
Daily telephone interviews have methodological limitations that must also be kept in mind. It
is possible that responses to interviewers’ questions were influenced by concerns about social
desirability (Diener, 2000). It is also possible that daily subjective ratings of pain and physical
limitation were systematically biased by mood and therefore confounded with ratings of
happiness. Although past research has linked perceived health in particular to happiness and
marital satisfaction, it would be useful to have objective daily ratings of health as well. In the
future, methodological innovations may allow us to obtain objective and subjective health
ratings simultaneously on a daily basis.
The results of this study suggest that social relationships play an important role in shaping the
happiness of older adults. It is imperative that social policy efforts designed to improve the
quality of life for our society’s oldest citizens take into account the effect of such efforts on
both the quality of older adults’ social relationships and the amount of time they spend each
day with others.
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Acknowledgments
The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH042248). An earlier version
of this work was presented at the 2006 biennial conference of the International Association for Relationship Research
in Crete, July, 2006. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following people whose advice and assistance
contributed significantly to this project: George Vaillant, Cynthia Moore, Kristina Harter, Laura Chivers, Sally Kuo,
Teresa Gorman, Christy Ponte, Robin Western, and Joanna Testa.
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Table 1
Hours Spent in Daily Activities
Men
Mean(SD)Women
Mean (SD)t* p
Hours spent with partner 8.28 (3.04) 8.17 (3.25) 0.28 .78
Hours spent with friends 1.10 (0.97) 1.56 (1.23) −3.12 .003
Hours spent with children or grandchildren 0.68 (1.00) 0.88 (1.37) −2.29 .03
Hours spent with caregivers 0.12 (0.23) 0.20 (0.49) −1.20 .24
Hours spent with neighbors 0.28 (0.53) 0.45 (0.60) −1.85 .07
Hours spent in volunteer work 0.28 (0.57) 0.60 (1.30) −1.57 .12
Hours spent alone 4.01 (2.04) 3.29 (1.90) 2.06 .04
Proportion of waking hours spent with others 0.71 (0.14) 0.76 (0.14) −2.27 .03
Proportion of waking hours spent with partner 0.54 (0.18) 0.52 (0.17) 1.05 .30
*Paired t-tests examining gender differences using variables aggregated across 8 days (n = 47).
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Table 2
Descriptive Statistics for Daily Perceived Health and Happiness Reports
Men Women
Mean (SD)
Actual
Range of
Daily
Reports
Mean (SD)
Actual
Range of
Daily
Reports
Aggregated Daily Reports
Pain (0–10) 1.59 (1.53) 0–7 1.69 (1.54) 0–8
Physical Limitation (1–5) 1.67 (0.70) 1–5 1.66 (0.71) 1–5
Happiness (1–7) 5.62 (0.96) 2–7 5.70 (0.96) 1–7
Note. Means reported are the aggregated mean scores of 8 days of data collection (n = 47).
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Table 3
Final HLM Estimates of Daily Links between Perceived Health and Happiness
Happiness
Unstandardized
Coefficient SE t Effect size
r
Men
Pain, γ20 −.072 .066 −1.08 .16.
Physical Limitation, γ20 −.160 .081 −1.96+.28
Women
Pain, γ20 −.176 .056 −3.11** .42
Physical Limitation, γ20 −.263 .082 −3.19** .43
+p <.10;
**p < .01
Note. Separate models were estimated for pain and physical limitation. All analyses control for previous day’s level of happiness.
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Table 4
Final HLM Estimates of Marital Satisfaction or Time Spent with Others as a Moderator of Daily Links between
Perceived Health and Happiness
Happiness
Unstandardized
Coefficient SE t Effect size
r
Marital Satisfaction
Men and Women
Marital Sat × Pain, γ21 .005 .001 4.86*** .59
Mar Sat × Physical Limitation, γ21 .007 .001 4.67*** .57
Time Spent with others
Men and Women
Time Spent with others × Pain, γ21 −.246 .234 −1.05 .15
Time Spent × Physical Limitation, γ21 −.034 .254 −.13 .02
**p< .01;
***p< .001
Note. Separate models were estimated for pain and physical limitation. All analyses control for previous day’s level of happiness. Estimates for the
moderating impact of marital satisfaction and time spent with others on pain-happiness and physical limitation-happiness links were constrained to
be equivalent across gender.
Psychol Aging. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 June 1.