For Older Couples, Negative Thoughts About Aging Can Be Detrimental to Their Spouses

New research in the Journal of Aging and Health suggests older couples can expect their health to decline due to negative self-perceptions about aging, reports Medical Xpress . The researchers found health effects differ by gender among senior couples: a husband's self-perceptions about aging are associated with the wife's depressive symptoms, whereas the wife's perspectives correspond with her husband's physical disability, functional limits, and chronic diseases. Overall, negative aging beliefs among senior couples can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that impacts psychological, cognitive, and behavioral processes. Women harboring less negative self-perceptions about aging are more likely to adopt health-promotion behavior themselves, and encourage their husbands to get healthcare and comply with medical treatment. Meanwhile, women who hold higher negative self-perceptions about aging are less likely to be proactive in terms of healthcare for themselves and their spouses. Yet a wife's depressive symptoms — rather than physical health — are more reactive to her husband's negative views on aging.