Importance of High Quality Relationships for Health and Well-being
Social relationships are a central part of life and are among the most important predictors of health and mortality (Holt-Lunstad, 2018). Relationships also offer resources that help individuals adapt to changes they encounter across development (Antonucci, Ajrouch, & Birditt, 2014; Uchino, Ong, Queen, & Kent De Grey, 2016).
There are key ways in which relationship quality might be related to healthy aging
In particular, the quality of marital relationships has emerged as an important predictor of health throughout adulthood, and associations between marital relationship quality and health have been found both concurrently and longitudinally spanning a range of age groups (Robles, https://getbride.org/sv/heta-costa-rica-kvinnor/ Slatcher, Trombello, & McGinn, 2014). Although some work has suggested links between marital status and well-being, with some reports suggesting married people enjoy health benefits over their unmarried counterparts (N. J. Johnson, Backlund, Sorlie, & Loveless, 2000), there is accumulating evidence demonstrating that marital quality may be more consequential for health than marital status alone (Gove, Hughes, & Style Briggs, 1983; Holt-Lunstad, Birmingham, & Jones, 2008). For example, one investigation showed that higher marital relationship quality was linked to indicators of physical and psychological health (e.g., lower ambulatory blood pressure, lower stress) (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2008). Moreover, this study also found that participants in lower quality marriages had higher blood pressure (possibly indicating poorer cardiovascular health) compared to single participants, reinforcing the importance of considering relationship quality in investigations of marital relationships and health.
Drawing on such findings, the Strength and Strain Model of ) was recently proposed to account for the diverging associations between marital status and health for people in higher vs. lower quality relationships. Broadly, the Strength and Strain Model posits that marital relationships involve both positive features (e.g., social support) that provide individuals with sources of “strength”, as well as negative features (e.g., conflict) that incur “strain.” High quality relationships are characterized by stronger positive features of relationships, which in turn protect and enhance health.
Read More