Actor and Partner Effect of Loneliness on Episodic Memory and Verbal Fluency: A Dyadic Multilevel Analysis of Romantic Couples Across 28 Countries

Loneliness and socioemotional memory

Do chronically high-lonely individuals exhibit specific memory biases when recalling past social episodes? We explored negative memory biases, focusing on the recall of unfavourable social experiences and social memory biases, emphasizing the recall of social experiences irrespective of emotional valence. We conducted a dictionary-based semantic analysis of autobiographical episodes obtained from 4095 participants via four datasets. Participants recalled a positive, negative or emotionally neutral episode from their recent past. High-lonely individuals predominantly exhibited a decline in recalling positive social episodes, providing partial support for negative memory biases. However, both high- and low-lonely individuals were similarly inclined to recall negative social episodes. These results suggest that the primary issue among high-lonely individuals is the limited recall of positive social experiences rather than the general negativity in memory biases or the hypersensitivity to general social memories.

Dyadic loneliness, age, and cognitive functioning among midlife and older Black couples

Objectives: Within marriages, loneliness has been linked with individuals' own and their partners' cognitive health. Yet little research has situated Black older adults within a relational, dyadic context.

Method: This study analyzed longitudinal dyadic data from the Health and Retirement Study (2010-2016; n = 1270 participants from 635 couples) from both partners in opposite-sex midlife and older couples where at least one partner reported being Black or African American.

Results: Results indicated (1) husbands' loneliness was associated with worse cognitive functioning 4 years later for wives who had high baseline cognitive functioning themselves; (2) wives' loneliness was associated with worse cognitive functioning 4 years later only for oldest-old husbands; and (3) wives' cognitive functioning was associated with slower increases to husbands' loneliness 4 years later.

Conclusion: Findings indicate that loneliness has dyadic consequences for cognitive functioning among older Black couples, but that context is crucial for determining who is at greatest risk of harmful repercussions from a partner's loneliness.

Longitudinal Dyadic Associations Between Loneliness and Cognition Among Older Couples in the United States

OBJECTIVES

Loneliness is associated with diminished health and cognition for older individuals. However, little research has examined dyadic loneliness-that is, loneliness of both partners in a relationship-and its potential consequences for cognitive functioning among both spouses, nor whether one partner's cognition may affect both partners' loneliness over time.

METHODS

We analyze 3-wave dyadic Health and Retirement Study data (2010-2020; N = 1,061 dyads) to determine (a) whether loneliness predicts participants' own and/or their partners' episodic memory and verbal fluency over 8 years, and (b) whether cognitive functioning predicts older spouses' own or their partners' loneliness over the same period.

RESULTS

Loneliness predicted participants' own and their partners' loneliness at follow-up, at both time points. Loneliness was also associated with own episodic memory at follow-up, but not with verbal fluency. Episodic memory and verbal fluency predicted one another over time. Neither episodic memory nor verbal fluency predicted loneliness at follow-up. Significant dyadic mediation was established such that Time 1 loneliness was linked with partner's Time 3 episodic memory via that partner's Time 2 loneliness.

DISCUSSION

Lonelier older adults displayed worse trajectories of episodic memory over time, yet poor memory did not precede changes to loneliness. Further, having a lonely partner was linked with poorer episodic memory 8 years later, indicating that both one's own and-to a lesser extent-a partner's emotional well-being may be consequential for maintaining cognitive functioning with age. Associations were more clearly established with episodic memory than with verbal fluency, suggesting potential domain-specific effects of loneliness.