Newswise, January 21, 2016 — As married couples spend day in
and day out together, they begin to experience a level of interdependence in
which one spouse's quality of life is very closely tied to that of the other.
This interdependence persists even after the death of one
spouse, according to new research from the University of Arizona.
A person's quality of life at the time of their death
continues to influence his or her spouse's quality of life in the years
following the person's passing, according to new research published in Psychological
Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
What's more, the association between a deceased and surviving
spouse is just as strong as the association between partners who are both
living, the researchers found.
"If your partner has higher quality of life before they
pass away, you're more likely to have higher quality of life even after they're
gone," said Kyle Bourassa, a UA psychology doctoral student and lead
author of the paper.
"If he or she has lower quality of life before they pass
away, you're then more likely to have lower quality of life."
In previous work, Bourassa and his colleagues found evidence
that a person’s cognitive functioning and health influence not only his or her
own well-being but also the well-being of his or her partner. They wondered
whether this interdependence continues when one of the partners passes away.
To find out, they turned to the multinational, representative
Study of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe, or SHARE, an ongoing research
project with more than 80,000 aging adult participants across 18 European
countries and Israel.
Specifically, they examined data from 546 couples in which one
partner had died during the study period and data from 2,566 couples in which
both partners were still living.
The researchers were surprised to find no observable
difference in the strength of the interdependence in couples' quality of life
when comparing widowed spouses with spouses whose partners remained alive. They
replicated these findings in two independent samples from the SHARE study,
while controlling for other factors that might have played a role, such as
participants' health, age and number of years married.
"Even though your marriage ends in a literal sense when
you lose your spouse, the effects of who the person was still seems to matter
even after they're gone," Bourassa said. "I think that really says
something about how important those relationships are."
While it's not entirely clear why the interdependence
persists, it's likely that the thoughts and emotions a person experiences when
reminiscing about a lost spouse may contribute to the ongoing connection, the
researchers say.
"Relationships are something we develop over time and
they are retained in our mind and memory and understanding of the world, and
that continues even after physical separation," said Mary-Frances
O'Connor, UA assistant professor of psychology and a co-author of the paper who
specializes in grief and the grieving process.
Bourassa said the findings could have implications for
end-of-life care and for helping those who have lost their spouses. "If
you can boost someone's quality of life before they pass, that might affect not
just their life, but the quality of life of their partner and their
family."
Other authors on the paper were David Sbarra, UA associate
professor of psychology, and Lindsey M. Knowles, UA psychology doctoral
student.
