Shared Fun and Enjoyment in Older Adulthood

The purpose of the current study is to explore the use of shared fun and enjoyment in older adult couples across varying contexts and examine how shared fun and enjoyment is related to husbands' and wives' current and future marital functioning. In being the first to examine older adult couples engaging in shared fun and enjoyment across varying interactions (marital narrative task, health support task, and problem- solving task), the current study expands the focus on marital functioning to an understudied population. To further explore this area, the current study used both self- reports and observations drawn from a sample of 64 happily married older couples followed over a year. Using actor-partner interdependence models, the current study aims to answer four research questions: (1) How much shared fun and enjoyment are the couples engaging in and does it depend on the conversation they are having?; (2) How does shared fun and enjoyment during couples' interactions predict spouses' current and future marital satisfaction?; (3) Does the association between shared fun and enjoyment and marital satisfaction differ depending on the interactional context (problem solving, health support, and reminiscing)? and (4) Does the association between shared fun and enjoyment and marital functioning (marital satisfaction and marital closeness) differ for husbands and wives? Couples were observed having moderate levels of fun globally and across all three interaction tasks. When couples were observed having more fun together, both spouses reported being more maritally satisfied at Wave 1. As to the specific associations between fun during the tasks and spouses' marital satisfaction, findings varied both across interactions and between spouses. Given the considerable increase of this population residing in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014), there is a need to continue to explore what may optimize relational well-being in the older adulthood.