Loving Others: The Impact of Compassionate Love on Later-Life Psychological Well-being

Eva Kahana, Tirth R Bhatta, Boaz Kahana, Nirmala Lekhak and Deborah S Carr

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2021, vol. 76, issue 2, 391-402

Abstract: ObjectivesExisting scholarship in social gerontology has paid relatively little attention to broader loving emotions, such as compassionate and altruistic love, as potentially meaningful mechanisms for improving later-life psychological well-being outside a family framework.MethodDrawing from a 3-wave longitudinal survey of community-dwelling older residents (n = 334) of Miami, Florida, we utilized generalized estimating equation models to examine the influence of changes in compassionate love (i.e., feeling love toward other persons and experiencing love from others) on depressive symptoms over time. We also explored cross-sectional relationship between compassionate love and positive and negative affects.ResultsAn increase in the feeling of being loved (β = −0.77, p

Keywords: Compassionate love; Connectedness; Loving kindness; Mattering; Mental health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

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