Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA.
Department of Human Development and Family Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2022 Dec 29;77(12):2202-2211. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbac086.
There is evidence that loneliness is detrimental to cognitive health. Most studies, however, do not consider the association between loneliness and cognition in the context of close relationships, such as a spouse or romantic partner. This study examines loneliness, experienced by both the individual and their romantic partner, and cognitive performance.
Data were from 24,689 opposite-sex couples (49,378 participants) from 28 countries in the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe. Each couple participant reported loneliness and completed memory and verbal fluency tasks. A multilevel sex-stratified analysis was used to account for the nested data structure and evaluate actor and partner effects of loneliness on cognitive performance for male and female partners.
Consistent with the literature, there were small actor effects of loneliness on memory and verbal fluency for both males and females: A person's own loneliness was associated negatively with their cognitive performance on both tasks. There were also small partner effects: A person with a partner who was lonely tended to have worse cognitive performance above and beyond their own loneliness. Actor and partners effects were similar for male and female partners, replicated in most countries, and generally held controlling for age, education, household size, and disease burden. For memory, loneliness effects were slightly stronger among older participants.
Both the experience of loneliness and loneliness of a partner have a negative association with cognitive health.
有证据表明孤独对认知健康有害。然而，大多数研究并未在配偶或伴侣等亲密关系的背景下考虑孤独感与认知之间的关系。本研究考察了个体及其浪漫伴侣的孤独感与认知表现之间的关系。
数据来自欧洲健康、老龄化和退休调查中的 28 个国家的 24689 对异性夫妇（49378 名参与者）。每对夫妇的参与者报告了孤独感，并完成了记忆和语言流畅性任务。采用多层次性别分层分析来解释嵌套数据结构，并评估孤独感对男性和女性伴侣认知表现的主体和伴侣效应。
与文献一致，孤独感对男性和女性的记忆和语言流畅性都有较小的主体效应：一个人的孤独感与其在这两项任务中的认知表现呈负相关。也存在较小的伴侣效应：伴侣孤独的人往往会在自身孤独感的基础上，认知表现更差。主体和伴侣效应在男性和女性伴侣中相似，在大多数国家得到复制，并且通常在控制年龄、教育、家庭规模和疾病负担后仍然存在。对于记忆，在年龄较大的参与者中，孤独感的影响略强。
孤独感的体验和伴侣的孤独感都与认知健康呈负相关。
