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Zambrano Garza, Elizabeth

University of British Columbia

Objective: This study focuses on the role of spouses in facilitating goal progress during a phase in life when individual resources for goal pursuit are particularly limited. Specifically analyzing the moderating role of relationship characteristics for time-varying partner involvement–goal progress associations as couples engaged in their everyday lives was examined. The time varying associations between everyday goal progress, effectiveness of partner contributions, and spousal satisfaction with this contribution were also assessed. Methods: Multilevel modelling was used to analyze data from 118 couples (236 individuals, M age = 70 years, SD= 5.9; 60-87 years, 50% women; 57% White). Both partners reported their personal goals and provided information on relationship satisfaction, conflict, and support. They also provided simultaneous ratings of everyday goal progress, effort, and partner involvement as well as effectiveness of and satisfaction with partner contribution up to three times daily over 7 days. Results: In line with expectations, higher relationship satisfaction and support were associated with higher goal progress when a partner was involved in goal pursuit, whereas higher conflict was associated with less goal progress with the partner involved. Both effectiveness of and satisfaction with partner contributions were positively associated with everyday goal progress. Discussion: Whether partner involvement is beneficial for goal progress depends on characteristics of the relationship as well as what partners actually do in everyday life. This highlights the importance of considering both stable person characteristics as well as time-varying processes to capture the complexity of goal pursuit in older couples.

Text

2021-08-16

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79307

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/