Relationship, time and happiness

Spouses are similar to each other in their pattern of happiness over time, and the feelings of one mutually influence those of the other

Miriam Dishon-Berkowitz

For many years, the research literature has indicated that social relationships - and especially married life - have an effect on people's level of happiness. However, the studies that have been carried out so far only looked at the individual - the spouse - he was asked to report on his personal level of happiness. Until now, there has not been much reference in studies to the question of whether there is a connection between the pattern of happiness (rises and falls in happiness levels over the years) of the individual and that of the partner.

The potential mutual influence on the pattern of happiness among couples who have been married for a long time is the subject of fascinating research, since there are many spouses who are very close to each other emotionally, who have accumulated many shared experiences and who live in the same environment, whether it is a physical environment or an ideological environment, values ​​and so on. And indeed, in previous studies it was found that there is similarity between married couples in diverse areas such as social activities, health and satisfaction with married life.

Now the question arises, will there be similarities between married couples also in the pattern of personal happiness they report? This question requires Christian Hoffman, Dennis Gerstorf, Sherry Willis and Warner Schaie (Hoppmann, Gerstorf, Sherry & Schaie in an article to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Developmental Psychology.

How to conduct the research

178 couples participated in the study, which is 356 participants, all part of a longitudinal study with 6,000 participants. The study collects data about people aged 22 to 101, living in the Seattle area in the United States (Seattle Longitudinal Study; SLS). The data was collected once every seven years starting in 1956. At the beginning of the study the average age of the participants was 48 years, they had an average of 2.5 children as well as high levels of education. At each seven-year time period, the participants were asked to report their happiness levels.

It is important to note that all the married couples chosen to participate in the study were close in age (up to two years apart). The reason for this lies in the desire to neutralize the influence of general socio-cultural variables on happiness levels. Since people experience during their lives experiences that are common to members of a certain year (wars, political or ideological revolutions, economic crises, etc.), these experiences may affect the personal happiness levels of each spouse. It therefore follows that in such a case a similarity in the pattern of happiness between spouses may arise from socio-cultural factors and not from the unique characteristics of married life.

Therefore, to neutralize this explanation from a research point of view, statistical comparisons were made between the happiness patterns of married couples and between those of two individuals from the sample (who are not married to each other) who were randomly paired for statistical comparison. If the patterns of happiness of married couples are more similar to each other than the patterns of happiness of individuals from the sample, who are not married to each other and were randomly paired, then it will be possible to conclude that the source of the similarity in the pattern of happiness between married couples lies in the shared marital experience or in married life itself, and not in the socio-cultural characteristics unique to the period.

From the analysis of the research findings, it appears that, on average, women and their husbands did not differ significantly in their levels of happiness at a given point in time. It also became clear that there was a large inter-individual variation among the study participants in the reported average happiness pattern: some reported a decrease in average happiness levels over the years, while others reported a constant average level of happiness, or even an increase in happiness levels.

However, the interesting finding of the study is that the pattern of ups and downs in happiness levels among married couples was similar. That is, if the partner's happiness levels changed and began to rise, he carried his wife along with him and her happiness levels began to soar. On the other hand, if the partner's happiness levels began to wane, her husband exhibited a similar pattern and reported lower levels of happiness. These differences are obtained even after neutralizing socio-cultural effects as well as effects of age, number of children or education levels.

The conclusion derived from the research is that the level of happiness of married people at a given point in time, as well as the pattern of ups and downs of their happiness over the years, depends to a significant extent on the pattern of happiness of their spouse. These findings are in line with developmental theories that deal with human development throughout the life cycle, and call for a broader observation that takes into account not only the individual, but also the environment in which he lives (including significant people in his life). To conclude, the present study only pointed to the existence of similarity in the transformations and vicissitudes of the happy life of long-married couples. Further research will be required to question what exactly are the factors that lead to the similarity in this pattern.

Dr. Miriam Dishon-Berkowitz is a psychologist, organizational and marketing consultant and a lecturer at the Ono Academic College.