Mutual influence and older married adults’ anxiety symptoms: Results from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing

Abstract

Purpose of the Study: This study analyzed dyadic data to examine the direct and indirect associations between husbands’ and wives’ reports of marital strain and generalized anxiety symptoms in later life. Design and Methods: Data were from 1,114 married couples with at least one spouse aged 60 or older, drawn from the initial 2009-2011 wave of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze dyadic data according to individual influence and mutual influence frameworks. Results: Mutual influence exhibited better model fit than individual influence. Findings revealed that perceptions of marital strain were related with husbands’ and wives’ own generalized anxiety symptoms. Further, husbands’ anxiety symptoms were significantly related with wives’ anxiety symptoms, and vice versa, illustrating bidirectional feedback. Finally, husbands’ and wives’ perceptions of marital strain were significantly indirectly related with their partners’ anxiety symptoms, with these associations being mediated by spouses’ own anxiety symptoms. Implications: Anxiety is a relational experience and may even be provoked by one’s marriage. Mutual influence modeling indicated that husbands’ and wives’ perceptions of the marriage and reports of anxiety were influential for both spouses’ anxiety symptoms. These results suggest that emotional contagion may be the pathway for partner effects of marital strain on spouses’ well-being. Findings also suggest that efforts to reduce anxiety symptoms may be most effective when taking marital context and quality into account.