We are in this together: Dyadic patterns of self-esteem change in late-life couples

Lifespan theoretical notions have long acknowledged that regulative capacities of the self are relatively robust well into old age. This general trend notwithstanding, people often differ substantially throughout life in their levels of and change trajectories in self-esteem. One prime contributing factor may be perceptions of social inclusion. Because functioning and development in many domains of life are often linked across partners, we examine whether and how self-esteem and its late-life change are intertwined between long-term married partners. To do so, we make use of six occasions over 18-year longitudinal data from 382 married couples in the Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging (M_age = 75 years at baseline, SD = 5.3, range 65–91). Applying SEM-based continuous time panel models revealed that discrete time autoregressive effects, which capture the stability of self-esteem, were declining over time. Most important for our question, across-partner (cross-lagged) effects indicated substantial differences between spouses such that change in husbands’ self-esteem predicts subsequent changes in the wives’ self-esteem, but not vice versa. We discuss potential conditions and challenges of dyadic associations in how late-life self-esteem and its change are intertwined between partners.