Abstract
This study aimed to examine whether social support promotes identity meaning among older adults. We hypothesized that when two spouses exchange social support, their sense of marital identity is enhanced. Among older adults, parental identity may be more strongly enhanced when parents provide social support to their children rather than receive social support from them. We conducted a longitudinal survey of 355 older adults (240 men and 115 women aged >60 years), who were assessed four times over 2 years. First, we confirmed the relationship between social support and identity meaning using an autoregressive path model. Second, we examined the effect of social support on the trajectory of role identities in a growth curve model. The intercepts of receiving support and providing support were significantly associated with the intercept of marital identity. In addition, the intercept of identity meaning for parents correlated with the intercept of providing support to their children but not with that of receiving support from their children. Social support between family members promotes role identities in family relationships. In particular, providing support to children correlates with parental roles which connect to subjective well-being.
Highlights
Social support has long been considered an important factor in subjective well-being (Diener and Seligman, 2002)
We aimed to examine whether social support predicts identity meaning, and to assess differences associated with the source of support in the relationship
Before we examined the effects of social support on identity meanings, we used autoregressive path models to test whether receiving support and providing support predict identity meanings (Figure 1) for marital and parent–child relationships
Summary
Social support has long been considered an important factor in subjective well-being (Diener and Seligman, 2002). Thomas (2010) reported that receiving support from a spouse was related to subjective well-being in older adults. Thomas (2010) reported that providing support to a spouse was related to subjective well-being in older adults. Variables The survey items included age, gender, subjective health, subjective economic condition, education, marital status, and child status. Subjective health was rated from 1 (extremely poor) to 5 (extremely good), and subjective economic condition was rated from 1 (extremely poor) to 5 (extremely rich) The participants indicated their education status as 1 (elementary school graduate, 1–6 years), 2 (junior high school graduate, 7–9 years), 3 (high school graduate, 10–12 years), 4 (college graduate, 13–16 years), or 5 (entered graduate school, >17 years). Participants chose one of the three categories: 1 (living with their children), 2 (not living with their children), or 3 (no children)
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