Hopes and Concerns in Couple Relationships across Adulthood and Their Association with Relationship...

INT’L. J. AGING AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, Vol. 75(2) 115-139, 2012

HOPES AND CONCERNS IN COUPLE RELATIONSHIPS

ACROSS ADULTHOOD AND THEIR ASSOCIATION

WITH RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION

FELICIANO VILLAR

University of Barcelona, Spain

DIANA JANETH VILLAMIZAR

University of Pamplona, Colombia

ABSTRACT

The study explored goals in couple relationships, and determined their asso-

ciation with age and the level of satisfaction expressed with the relationship.

The participants were made up of 355 volunteers, aged between 20 and

78, who had been in a relationship for more than 6 months. The sample

was gathered to ensure an age and gender balance. Participants’ goals were

ascertained by means of three sentence stems that they completed by

expressing a general expectation, a hope, and a concern as regards their

relationship. Satisfaction with the relationship was measured by means of

Hendrick’s Relationship Assessment Scale. Responses to the open-ended

sentences were content analyzed and categorized. The frequency of these

categories was associated with age, which indicated that an orientation

toward growth was less frequent and an orientation toward maintenance

was more common in older groups. Except in the youngest group, satisfac-

tion with the relationship was negatively correlated to gains, and positively

to maintenance. The study emphasizes the changes experienced in couple-

related goals across adulthood and their relevance to satisfaction with the

relationship, issues which have received little research attention to date.

115

� 2012, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/AG.75.2.b

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The ability to anticipate the future, set goals and make plans to either attain or

avoid certain future states is a fundamental factor for understanding human

behavior and its development across the life span.

In recent decades, research on goals and how these goals change and influence

development has increased markedly. Thus, goals have been conceptualized

as possible selves (Cross & Markus, 1991; Hooker, 1999; Markus & Nurius,

1986), personal projects (Little, 1983, 1999), personal strivings (Emmons, 1996;

Sheldon & Kasser, 2001), and life tasks (Meegan & Berg, 2001; Meegan &

Goedereis, 2006). Although each of these concepts has its own specific traits

and nuances, including differences in the type of methodological approach used

in assessing goals, all of them conceptualize goals as conscious objectives

that represent the future-oriented domain of the self, and consider that the moti-

vational value of goals can be positive (e.g., hopes and aspirations) or negative

(e.g., fears and concerns). It is this common definition of goals that we adopt in

the present study.

Research has shown the importance of goals for development and for well-

being in specific life contexts across adulthood, such as occupation (Chalk,

Meara, & Day, 1994; Robinson, Davis, & Meara, 2003), paternity (Bloom,

Delmore-Ko, Masataka, & Carli, 1999; Hooker, Fiese, Jenkins, Morfei, &

Schwagler, 1996), and health-related experiences (Black, Stein, & Loveland-

Cherry, 2001; Hooker, 1992). However, other developmental contexts of rele-

vance have received little research interest from this perspective. For instance,

to the best of our knowledge, no studies have explicitly assessed goals asso-

ciated with couple relationships.

This absence of studies on couple-related goals is surprising, since couple

relationships are arguably the most intimate bond people establish in adult life.

If a couple’s relationship is successful, it could last for decades and define the

life trajectory of the partners involved (Gottman, 1998; Mikulincer, Florian,

Cowan, & Cowan, 2002). Though there are large differences between couples,

the intimate, shared bond provides benefits in terms of love, emotional support

and companionship, as well as security and material rewards (Cultrona, 1996).

For instance, there is evidence that, on average, married people experience

more happiness and life satisfaction and less psychological distress than single

people (Coombs, 1991; Haring-Hidore, Stock, Okun, & Witter, 1985; Stack &

Eshleman, 1998). The importance of such relationships is also shown by the

painful consequences of losing the bond, for example when partners get divorced

(e.g., Amato, 2004), or are widowed (e.g., Onrusta & Cuijpers, 2006).

If a couple relationship is defined as an intimate, romantic relationship in

which two people are committed regardless of their status (dating, cohabiting, or

married), such a commitment should necessarily imply the presence of some

kind of future representation of the relationship, that is, of some kind of goals

in terms of expectations, hopes, or future concerns. These goals are the moti-

vational force that direct and organize the efforts of each member of the couple

116 / VILLAR AND VILLAMIZAR

to pursue or avoid outcomes, becoming the means by which they bring about

the development of their relationship.

DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGE IN COUPLE

RELATIONSHIP GOALS

This developmental function of the goals set in a couple relationship empha-

sizes their dynamic nature and the readjustments that occur as life circumstances

change. As well as ongoing concerns and personal experiences (Frazier, Johnson,

Gema, & Kafka, 2002), goals at least partly reflect age-graded developmental

challenges and transitions that individuals face at different stages in life. In

this sense, stage developmental approaches to adulthood, such as Erikson’s (1982)

theory, which regard life span development as a sequence of age-graded psycho-

social tasks or goals, shed some light on the kind of goals associated with couple

relationships. For Erikson, young adults are faced with constructing a sense of

intimacy with another person, and the main concern in this stage is being isolated.

In middle adulthood, generativity becomes the main goal and stagnation the

main concern, which in many cases implies an interest in expanding the couple

relationship with a desire to raise and care for children. However, in older age the

typical psychosocial task is focused on attaining integrity, which has little to do

with couple relationships, since it means examining one’s life and accepting the

personal past as something meaningful and satisfying. If personal goals are at least

in part a reflection of social expectations and life experiences, hopes and concerns

in relation to couple relationships should bear the stamp of such developmental

tasks. If this framework were applied to couple relationships, we would expect

a hope (and concern) to be expressed for the consolidation of the couple in

young adulthood, followed by an investment in the expansion of the couple and

interest in external goals (children, improvement in quality of life, etc.) in middle

adulthood. In older age, concerns about the preservation of what has been already

achieved would become increasingly salient.

However, as well as specific content, one of the keys to understanding the

adjustment of goals across a life span lies in their changing motivational orien-

tation. In this sense, life span psychology defines three types of relevant develop-

mental goals: growth, maintenance, and regulation (or prevention) of losses

(Baltes, 1997; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006; Baltes & Smith, 2004).

A central hypothesis of this theory is that the salience of each type of goal changes

across adulthood, reflecting a change in resources and constraints as people grow

older. Typically, young adults have plenty of biological and social resources,

which favor an orientation toward maximizing growth. However, as people grow

older, the resources required to make new gains become scarcer, and the threat

of losses increases. In response to this situation, the focus of developmental goals

in middle and older adulthood changes to maintenance and prevention of losses.

GOALS IN COUPLE RELATIONSHIPS / 117

Other factors might also play a role in the age-related change in goals. As

members of the couple grow older and reach later life, they may start to anticipate

the end of the couple and future states of widowhood. This shortened future

perspective makes older people focus on short-term goals and present states

(Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). In addition, couples have completed

many shared life projects by older adulthood. Therefore, it makes sense that

the orientation toward maintaining the status quo, while emphasizing the impor-

tance of goals that have already been accomplished, plays a more important

role in older age than striving for new gains and perspectives for the couple

(Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Maier, 1999).

Goals and Satisfaction with the Relationship

As well as directing the development of the relationship, couple-related goals

provide an evaluative and interpretive context for the current view of the rela-

tionship. Thus, satisfaction with the relationship may depend, at least partially,

on the perceived distance and attainability of goals that each member of the

couple has set for that relationship. As the pursuit and achievement of goals is a

predictor of life satisfaction (e.g., Schmuck & Sheldon, 1999) and goals can

turn into sources of dissatisfaction if they become unattainable or exceed indi-

vidual resources (Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003), discrepancies between

couple-related goals and the present state of the relationship could be a predictor

of satisfaction with couple relationships.

However, developmental theories of adulthood propose that goals only

contribute to satisfaction if they are in keeping with the expectations for each

life stage. For instance, Erikson (1982) proposed that those showing the concerns

and pursuing the tasks related to their life stage should be happier because

they have more successfully resolved important earlier tasks and are better inte-

grated into society. This association between Erikson’s adult life tasks and satis-

faction has been confirmed in various studies. For instance, An and Cooney

(2006) found an association between generativity in mid-life and well-being,

and Sheldon and Kasser (2001) found that the most “mature” concerns in the

Eriksonian perspective, generativity and ego integrity, were more frequent

among middle-aged and older adults, and both predicted their well-being. If

these findings are translated into terms of couple relationships, a concern about

intimacy and generativity in young and middle adulthood, and a concern

about integrity-related goals in older age will be associated with satisfaction

with the relationship.

Furthermore, the life span theory also explicitly identifies a bond between

goals and satisfaction. As goal-related resources and constraints change as

people age, the adjustment of goals is key to maintaining positive well-being and

a source of resilience across the life span. Specifically, the shift in goals toward

maintenance and loss prevention that occurs as people grow older pays off in terms


of well-being in older age, while in young adulthood well-being is more

closely related to attaining new gains (Ebner, Freund, & Baltes, 2006). If this

scheme is applied to couple-related goals, the satisfaction with the relationship

may depend on the motivational orientation of these specific goals: in younger

members of couples satisfaction will be associated with gain-oriented goals,

whereas in older couples satisfaction will be more closely related to maintenance

or avoiding-loss goals.

OBJECTIVES

Our study explored future expectations, hopes, and concerns related to couple

relationships. These representations of the future were examined in different

cohorts, from 20 to 60 years of age and over. The study had two objectives. The

first was to ascertain if goals change across adulthood. In this respect, two

dimensions of goals were taken into account: the specific content of the couple-

related goal and their motivational orientation (gains, maintenance, and pre-

vention of losses). We expected both dimensions to reflect age-related differences,

and hypothesized that:

• The content of goals would be affected by the developmental tasks that

individuals typically deal with in different life stages. In younger samples, the

content of goals would be related to the consolidation of the partnership.

For middle-aged adults, family issues (especially children) and generative

goals were expected to be the main concerns. In older adults, the focus of

goals would turn to the preservation of the couple in the context of increasing

health threats.

• The motivational orientation of goals would reflect the pattern of changing

resources and constraints as people grow older. In younger samples, gains

would outnumber maintenance or prevention of losses, whereas in older

samples, goals referring to maintenance and prevention of losses would

be particularly frequent.

The second objective was to examine the association between couple-related

goals and satisfaction with the relationship. In this respect, our hypotheses

were the following:

• Among young and middle-aged participants, focusing on gains and showing

concern for issues of generativity would have a positive impact on their

satisfaction with the relationship, as these are the stages when couple rela-

tionships are consolidated and expanded.

• In older age, as the future time perspective shortens and the probability of

losses increases, the abandonment of gain expectations and the readjust-

ment of goals in terms of stability could boost satisfaction with the rela-

tionship. In a similar way, concern for issues of generativity would no longer

be associated with satisfaction with the relationship.


METHOD

Participants

A sample of 355 individuals aged between 20 and 78 (M = 43.5 yr, SD = 18.2)

participated in the study. All participants were living in Barcelona or its metro-

politan area, and had had a partner for at least 6 months before commencement

of the study. The average length of the relationship was 19.9 years (SD = 17.8),

ranging from 6 months to 70 years. This broad range of ages and lengths of

relationship ensured the inclusion of a great variety of life and relationship

issues that participants had had to face, and which was necessary for the attain-

ment of the objectives of this study.

The sample included 179 men (50.4%) and 176 women (49.6%). Ninety-eight

participants (24.6%) were dating (not living with their partner), 52 were

cohabiting (14.6%), and 205 were married (57.7%). One hundred and fifty

participants (42.3%) did not have children. As for the education of the sample,

23.7% of the participants had only completed primary studies, 6.5% had not

completed any formal education, 32.4% had attended high school or had voca-

tional studies, and the rest (35.6%) had university qualifications.

Measures

A questionnaire specifically developed for the purpose of this study was

administered to the participants. It comprised two sections. Section one solicited

socio-demographic information, including age, sex, relationship status (dating,

cohabiting, married), whether the participant had children with his/her partner,

the length of the relationship (including years spent dating if the couple lived

together), the amount of formal education (no studies, primary, secondary, or

university studies), and the subjective health, to be reported on a 5-point scale

from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good).

Section two included two instruments: a sentence completion questionnaire

and a measure of satisfaction with the relationship. The first instrument was

designed to elicit conceptions about couple relationships in a non-directive

manner. It was made up of 12 sentence stems relating to different aspects of

couple relationships, including aspects of the past (The best thing of my couple

relationship has been . . .), the present (Thanks to my couple relationship I can . . .)

and the future of the relationship. Sentence completion permitted the participants

to express their responses in their own words and in accordance with their

personal concerns. Instruments similar to the one used in this study, such as

Nuttin’s MIM (Nuttin, 1985) or Dittmann-Kohli’s SELE (Dittmann-Kohli &

Westerhof, 1997), have been found to be highly valid with respect to the personal

relevance of themes and have good test-retest stability.

The results of the present study were extracted from the three future-oriented

sentence stems included in the questionnaire: one neutral (In the future, my couple


relationship . . .), one positive concerning future aspirations (When we are older,

I hope . . .), and one negative related to future concerns (What’s worrying me

about our future is . . .). The rationale for including three types of stem was

to guarantee that participants would generate a wide variety of goals and, in

particular, to ensure the presence of positive (hopes) and negative (concerns)

goals, which some authors have identified as being the compounds of the future-

oriented self (e.g., Cross & Markus, 1991; Hooker, 1999). The neutral sentence

stem, which was presented before the positive and negatives stems, did not

bias a participant’s responses toward any particular type of goal.

Answers tended to be quite short. The average length of the stems was 4.7

words for the neutral stem (SD = 3.4, ranging from 1 to 21 words), 5.2 words for

the positive stem (SD = 4.1, ranging from 1 to 31), and 5.8 words for the negative

stem (SD = 4.0, ranging from 1 to 24 words).

The second instrument was Hendrick’s Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS),

a brief measure consisting of seven items aimed at testing the level of overall

satisfaction with romantic relationships of marital and non-marital nature (e.g.,

“In general, how satisfied are you with your relationship with your partner?”).

The alpha coefficient reported for the scale is .86 (Hendrick, 1988). Respondents

were asked to indicate whether or not each statement described their couple

relationship accurately on a 5-point scale. The specific labels of each point

depended on the item, ranging from very unsatisfied to very satisfied in one case,

from almost nothing to completely in two cases, and from none to many on four

items. Instructions for completing the questionnaire were included before the

first item to facilitate self-administration. We used the Spanish version of the

scale, translated by Contreras, Hendrick, and Hendrick (1996). The mean score

was 21.8 (SD = 3.9, ranging from 3 to 28), a high value given that the scale

ranges from 0 to 28, where higher values express a greater level of satisfaction

with the relationship. The alpha coefficient was .83.

Procedure

The study was advertised in six intergenerational civic centers in Barcelona

and its metropolitan area. Civic centers are sponsored by city councils or foun-

dations and their aim is to provide leisure, social, or educational activities for

the community. Participation in these activities is generally free.

Once the study had been advertised, a member of the research team went to the

civic center and, with the director’s help, organized meetings with users to explain

the research aims and to obtain their consent to participate. Once their consent

had been obtained, a questionnaire and instructions were given to each volunteer

who met the inclusion criteria (i.e., participants had to be in a couple relation-

ship that had lasted for at least 6 months and be aged 20 or over). Participants

completed the instruments individually or in groups of five or six people. Par-

ticipants completed the questionnaire by themselves (including the completion of


the sentence stems) with few needing help. Questionnaire completion generally

took about 15 minutes. If both members of a couple wished to participate in

the study only one was permitted to do so, since the presence of the other member

might have influenced his/her responses, resulting in the potential non-

independence of data.

A total of 377 people volunteered to participate in the study. However, 12

questionnaires had to be discarded because they were incomplete. We endeavored

to include approximately the same number of men and women and the same

number of participants in each decade of life (from 20 to 29, 30 to 39, 40 to 49,

50 to 59, and 60 and older). Middle-aged participants were especially difficult

to obtain, since the profile of activities organized by civic centers tends to

attract, in the main, non-married young adults, young parents, and older people.

Thus, the eventual sample included fewer participants aged between 40 and 49

(54 participants, 15.2%) and between 50 and 59 (36 participants, 10.1%) than

participants aged between 20 and 29 (89, 25.1%), 30 and 39 (90 participants,

25.4%), and 60 and over (86, 24.2%).

Data Analysis

Once all the participants’ responses had been transcribed and entered into a

database, the answers to each stem (neutral, positive and negative) were content-

analyzed separately. The researchers first read all the responses to the same

question to become acquainted with the data. Afterwards, ideas (or units of

meaning) were identified in each response. Responses might contain one or

several ideas. For instance, the response When we are older, I hope . . . to stay

together and have our own house contained two ideas. The next step involved

grouping these “ideas” by theme or category based on repetition or the similarity

of threads of meaning or key words in the unit (Luborsky, 1994; Owen, 1984).

A hierarchically structured category system was established for each stem

(neutral, positive, negative). At the specific level, categories were inductively

differentiated according to the meanings expressed in the responses. Afterwards,

at the more general level, specific, first-order categories were grouped into

broader, second-order categories (e.g., in the case of the neutral stem, first-order

categories such as Travelling or Housing were grouped in the same second-order

category, Gains). In the case of categories belonging to the neutral and positive

stems, such second-order categories were deductively derived from relevant

theoretical concepts of life span psychology, such as gain, stability, or avoiding

loss. In the case of the negative stem, such concepts did not account for first-order

categories, and so second-order categories were created inductively, based on

similarities between the first-order categories.

This hierarchical structure of categories permitted both fine differentiation

and the combination of categories, depending on the number of variables that

the researcher wished to examine. To increase the reliability of the results, the


process of categorization was conducted independently by two researchers.

The first- and second-order categories obtained by each researcher were com-

pared and any differences were negotiated until a consensus on the category

system was reached.

Once the categories had been obtained and defined, the researchers indepen-

dently read the full list of units of meaning for each stem again and assigned them

to a category in the system specifically created for that stem. Any disagreements

were identified and used to correct the limits of the categories and to modify their

definitions until the researchers agreed on a final version of the categorization.

The last step involved an independent judge who had not participated in the

initial process and was not informed of the study or of its aims. The judge

was provided with a copy of the original units of meaning and the final version

of the category system (including category definitions) and asked to assign the

responses to the categories. This independent categorization was then compared

with that completed by the researchers. The two categorizations were entered

in a statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) and the comparison was

used to obtain the Kappa index of reliability for the system. This process was

then repeated separately for the categorization of responses given to each of

the three stems (neutral, positive, and negative stems).

After obtaining the final version of categories, chi-square tests were run cross-

ing categories with age. Subsequently, to discard variables that might have had

a spurious relationship with age, logistic regressions were run for second-order

categories in a multivariate analysis, including age, gender, length of the relation-

ship, subjective health, having children, and satisfaction with the relationship

as predictive variables. This analysis was not conducted to infer causality, but

rather to determine characteristics that were uniquely associated with the likeli-

hood of mentioning different types of goal. Both analyses, chi-square tests, and

logistic regressions were used to address the hypotheses related to the first

objective. Finally, point-biserial correlations were obtained to determine the

relationship between the motivational orientations of goals and satisfaction with

the relationship in different age groups, enabling us to address the hypotheses

related to the second objective.

RESULTS

Types of Goals in Couple Relationships

Neutral Stem

Table 1 shows that two main categories that emerged from the analysis. The

first referred to gains, and involved goals that implied further enrichment of the

relationship or the attainment of a new stage or developmental task. It included

three first order categories: (a) Comments on improvements that would make

the relationship better or help to attain a good state (e.g., In the future, my couple


relationship . . . will be even stronger); (b) Comments on expectations of living

together, cohabiting or marrying (e.g., In the future, my couple relationship . . .

must plan how to have a house as soon as possible); (c) Comments on the

creation or expansion of their family, and particularly on having children or

grandchildren (e.g., In the future, my couple relationship . . . will be a relationship

of three, counting our baby).

The second category was made up of ideas related to maintaining the status

quo and expectations of the continuance of a current state in the future. This

category included four first-order ideas: (a) Comments on some specific positive

quality that describes the relationship in the present and which the participant

expects to maintain in the future (e.g., In the future, my couple relationship . . .

will have the same level of complicity); (b) Comments on remaining together

as a couple, not splitting up or not experiencing divorce (e.g., In the future,

my couple relationship… will last all life long); (c) Generic comments on no

changes (e.g., In the future, my couple relationship . . . I want it to be as it is now);

(d) Comments on preventing negative aspects from appearing in the future (e.g.,

In the future, my couple relationship . . . should avoid monotony).


Table 1. Percentage of Content-Based Categories for the Neutral Stem

(In the future, my couple relationship . . .) in Different Age Groups

Age Total

20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+ N %

Gains

Improving

Living together

Family

Maintenance

Keeping positive aspects

Being together

No change

Avoiding negative aspects

Positive quality

Losses

Change

Don’t know

59.1

42.0

9.1

12.5

26.1

10.1

6.8

7.9

0.0

4.5

1.1

4.5

11.4

55.1

46.1

1.1

6.7

34.8

10.0

10.1

14.4

2.2

1.1

3.4

2.2

4.5

34.0

26.4

1.9

0.0

52.8

7.4

11.3

27.8

3.8

5.7

3.8

7.5

5.7

25.0

19.4

0.0

0.0

55.6

13.9

11.1

30.6

0.0

13.9

2.8

0.0

5.6

2.4

2.4

0.0

0.0

66.3

10.5

12.0

40.7

0.0

20.5

6.0

0.0

4.8

130

101

10

17

157

36

35

81

4

30

12

10

23

37.2

28.5

2.9

4.9

45.0

10.1

10.0

22.8

1.1

8.6

3.4

2.9

6.6

Additionally, some participants simply responded with a quality that was

generally positive and described their relationship in the future, but without

any explicit or implicit comparison with the present state (e.g., In the future, my

couple relationship . . . will be good; In the future, my couple relationship . . . will

be normal). A small number of participants predicted losses (e.g., In the future,

my couple relationship . . . will be worse, because we can’t stand quarrelling) or

changes, without specifying their direction (e.g,. In the future, my couple relation-

ship . . . will adapt to new circumstances). Twenty-three participants said that

they did not know what their couple relationship would be like in the future.

Cohen’s Kappa index, including first- and second-order categories, was 0.87,

which indicates that the system was reliable.

Positive Stem

The category system which emerged from responses to the positive stem was

similar to that described for the neutral stem, since it consisted of the same two

second-order categories (gains and stability). However, both categories included

additional first-order ideas, as shown in Table 2.

In the case of gains, as well as comments on improving (e.g., When we are

older, I hope . . . that our complicity is even greater), living together (e.g., When

we are older, I hope . . . we have a small place to live together), and family (e.g.,

When we are older, I hope . . . we can take care of our grandchildren), respondents


Table 2. Percentage of Content-Based Categories for the Positive Stem

(When we are older, I hope . . .) in Different Age Groups

Age Total

20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+ N %

Gains

Improving

Solving negative aspects

Family

Travelling

Housing

Living together

Maintenance

Keeping positive aspects

Being together

No change

Health/autonomy

Avoiding negative aspects

60.5

15.1

0.0

22.1

3.5

7.0

18.6

43.0

27.0

11.2

5.6

0.0

4.7

64.0

20.2

4.5

19.1

16.9

5.6

2.2

37.1

12.2

16.7

8.9

2.2

2.2

50.0

18.5

13.0

1.9

16.7

1.9

0.0

57.4

14.8

22.2

14.8

9.3

0.0

38.9

25.0

2.8

0.0

13.9

2.8

0.0

52.8

5.6

33.3

8.3

11.1

0.0

20.5

15.7

1.2

0.0

1.2

1.2

1.2

73.5

5.8

26.7

25.6

14.5

1.2

167

63

13

37

33

19

14

181

50

72

46

23

7

48.0

18.1

3.7

10.6

9.5

5.5

4.0

52.0

14.1

20.1

13.0

6.6

2.0

also mentioned aspects such as solving negative issues (e.g., When we are older,

I hope . . . I can fix small things that cause problems), travelling (e.g., When we are

older, I hope . . . we can afford to travel around Europe), or buying/ changing a

flat or a house (When we are older, I hope . . . we can buy a flat in the mountains).

As for maintenance-related responses, answers related to holding onto positive

aspects (e.g., When we are older, I hope . . . to keep on sharing everything with

her), being together (e.g., When we are older, I hope . . . we still are a couple), or

preventing negative aspects (e.g., When we are older, I hope . . . that we do not

grow in different directions) also appeared, as was the case with the neutral stem.

However, a new first-order category emerged from the analysis, relating to com-

ments on health and autonomy (e.g., When we are older, I hope . . . we can still

live without anybody’s help).

Cohen’s Kappa index, including first- and second-order categories, was 0.92,

which indicates excellent agreement between raters.

Negative Stem

The category system describing the responses related to future concerns was

quite distinct (see Table 3) from those that emerged for the neutral and positive

stems. Responses could be organized into three second-order categories, as shown

in Table 3.


Table 3. Percentage of Content-Based Categories for the Negative Stem

(What’s worrying me about our future is . . .) in Different Age Groups

Age Total

20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+ N %

Focus on the relationship

Ending

Deterioration

Focus on external issues

Problems

Family

Job/money

Aging and health

Older age

Health/illness

Dependency

Death

Nothing

42.7

12.4

30.3

40.4

7.9

1.1

31.5

4.5

1.1

3.4

0.0

0.0

11.2

28.1

7.9

20.2

47.2

7.9

18.0

24.7

19.1

1.1

15.7

0.0

2.2

7.9

22.6

3.8

18.9

39.6

7.5

20.8

13.2

39.6

3.8

26.4

0.0

9.4

5.7

13.9

5.6

8.3

22.2

2.8

8.3

11.1

58.3

11.1

36.1

2.8

8.3

11.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

14.1

2.4

8.2

3.5

81.2

7.1

43.5

9.4

28.2

5.9

80

22

58

119

21

38

64

132

14

81

9

34

29

22.7

6.3

16.5

33.8

6.0

10.8

18.2

37.5

4.0

23.0

2.6

9.7

8.2

The first included ideas related to the relationship as a bond between two

people. It included two first-order categories: (a) Comments about a fear of the

relationship ending or disappearing because of the lack of commitment of the

partner, infidelity, or divorce (e.g., What’s worrying me about our future is . . . that

we might split up); (b) Comments on the deterioration of the relationship,

sometimes mentioning the loss of valued qualities such as intimacy, love or

support (e.g., What’s worrying me about our future is . . . that we might stop

loving each other).

The second main category referred to ideas expressing concerns about

issues involving the couple. It included three first-order categories: (a) Generic

comments about external problems or events that might destabilize the couple

(e.g., What’s worrying me about our future is . . . unexpected things that are

uncontrollable); (b) Comments about issues raised by family members or diffi-

culties posed by family roles, with concerns about children being particularly

frequent (What’s worrying me about our future is . . . coping with my children’s

adolescence); (c) Concerns related to financial problems, including direct

references to difficulties created by not having sufficient money to meet basic

needs or attain desired goals, or mention of lost sources of financial support,

such as a job (What’s worrying me about our future is . . . making ends meet).

The third second-order category was related to concerns about aging and

health and included four first-order categories: (a) Comments about growing

old or age-related problems as a source of concern (e.g., What’s worrying me

about our future is . . . having a decent old age); (b) Comments about illnesses and

deterioration in health (e.g., What’s worrying me about our future is . . . that one

of us might become too ill); (c) Comments about dependency and loss of autonomy

(e.g., What’s worrying me about our future is . . . becoming dependent on my

children); (d) Comments about partner’s death, widowhood or feelings of loneli-

ness caused by the disappearance of the partner (e.g., What’s worrying me about

our future is . . . that death will finally break us apart).

Finally, there was a small group of participants (8.2%) who stated that they

had no concerns about the future.

Cohen’s Kappa reliability index of the category system, including first- and

second-order categories, was 0.85, which indicates that the system was reliable.

Relationship between Goals, Age,

and Background Factors

Table 1 shows that the distribution of gains and maintenance was closely

related to age in the responses reported for the neutral stem. Chi-square tests

were performed to determine the significance of this particular relationship.

Thus, whereas mentions of gains tended to decrease among the three oldest

groups (�2(4) = 75.7, p < 0.0001), the trend was reversed for maintenance,

with such comments being more frequent in these three age groups (�2(4) = 34.5,


p < 0.0001). Comments about the positive quality of the relationship were also

more frequent in the two oldest groups (�2(4) = 24.9; p < 0.0001). As for the

actual content of goals, references to improving some aspect of the relationship

were the main source of age differences in gains (�2(4) = 50.2; p < 0.0001).

Although comments about living together and family were also more frequent

in the youngest age group, in these cases, �2 values could not be calculated as

more than 50% of the cells had an expected count less than 5. As for main-

tenance, statistically significant differences appeared for the category “No

change” (�2(4) = 32.4; p < 0.0001), which was more frequent in older groups,

particularly among 40 to 60+ participants.

The distribution of gains and maintenance in the responses to the positive stem

followed a similar trend: a decrease in gains (�2(4) = 40.9; p < 0.0001) and an

increase in maintenance (�2(4) = 26.7; p < 0.0001) in participants aged 40 and

over (see Table 2). Differences in gains were found in comments about the

family, housing, and living together, which were practically absent among par-

ticipants aged 40 and over. Comments about travelling and solving negative

aspects of relationships were particularly infrequent among the youngest

(20-29) and oldest (60+) participants. As for maintenance, age-related differ-

ences were mainly found in three categories: in participants aged 20 to 49

comments about maintaining positive qualities of the relationship were more

frequent (�2(4) = 19.5; p < 0.001), while the opposite trend was the case for

references to no change (�2(4) = 18.5; p < 0.001). Participants aged 40 and over

made more frequent comments within the category ‘health/autonomy’ (�2(4) =

18.9; p < 0.001). Differences between the age groups for the rest of the categories

were not statistically significant.

Responses to the last incomplete sentence, which referred to concerns, were

also age-related. Table 3 shows that concerns about the relationship (�2(4) = 48.3;

p < 0.0001) and concerns about external issues (�2(4) = 26.6; p < 0.0001) tended

to decline in older cohorts (particularly among participants aged 50 and over),

although the rate of decline was lower for external issues, which were still quite

frequent among middle-aged participants. Family concerns were more frequent

among 30- to 49-year-old participants, while 20- to 39-year-olds were particularly

concerned by job and money issues. In older samples, the number of comments

about health (and death among participants older than 60) increased dramatically

(�2(4) = 130.2; p < 0.001).

However, there might be other variables with a relation to the motivational

orientation and content of couple relationship goals, and some of these might be

confounded with age. To estimate these effects, a logistic regression was per-

formed for each second-order category in the three systems (neutral, positive,

and negative stems, see Table 4). Thus, the presence/absence of each specific

second-order goal acted as the dependent variable, and the same six predictive

variables were entered in each analysis: age, length of the relationship, gender,

level of education, subjective health, having children (or not), and satisfaction


with the relationship. As can be seen in Table 4, age decreased the probability

of mentioning gains both in the neutral and positive stems. In these stems, age

also increased the probability of mentioning maintenance. Satisfaction with the

relationship seems to function in a similar direction: it predicted a greater prob-

ability of mentioning maintenance in the neutral and positive stems, but it

predicted a lower probability of mentioning gains in the positive stem and of

mentioning losses in the neutral stem. As for the negative stem, greater satisfaction

with the relationship, membership of an older cohort, and being male were

associated with fewer specific concerns regarding the relationship. Membership

of an older cohort also increased the probability of comments related to aging

and health. Remarkable here is that one of the variables which we would expect


Table 4. Odds Ratios in Binary Logistic Regressions for

Second-Order Categories Extracted in Each Stem

Dependent variable

Predictive

variable

Odds

ratios p 95% CI

Neutral stem

Gains

Maintenance

Positive quality

Losses

Change

Positive stem

Gains

Maintenance

Negative stem

Focus on the relationship

Focus on external issues

Aging and health

Nothing

Age

Satisfaction

Subjective health

—

Satisfaction

—

Age

Satisfaction

Satisfaction

Age

Satisfaction

Age

Gender

—

Age

—

0.92

1.10

0.70

0.75

0.94

0.92

1.08

1.05

0.86

0.92

0.54

1.11

< 0.001

0.003

0.039

< 0.001

0.005

0.011

0.009

0.048

< 0.001

0.004

0.043

< 0.001

[0.88, 0.96]

[1.03, 1.18]

[0.49, 0.98]

[0.65, 0.84]

[0.91, 0.98]

[0.86, 0.98]

[1.02, 1.15]

[1.02, 1.09]

[0.79, 0.94]

[0.88, 0.98]

[0.30, 0.98]

[1.06, 1.17]

Note: Six predictive variables entered into the logistic regressions: age, gender (refer-

ence value, female), length of the relationship, subjective health, having (or not) children

(reference value, no children), and satisfaction with the relationship. Only variables with

statistically significant odd ratios are included in the table.

to be confounded with age, the length of the relationship, was not a significant

predictor of any second-order category.

Relationship between Goals and

Satisfaction with the Relationship

As for satisfaction with the relationship, we found age-related point-biserial

correlations between this variable and the motivational orientation of goals as

defined by life span theory, and expressed in second-order categories for neutral

and positive stems. Point-biserial correlation informs us whether a continuous

(satisfaction) and a dichotomous (presence/absence of the goal) variable are

associated. In general, correlations were low or very low, although they followed

the expected trends. Thus, as shown in Figure 1, for responses to the neutral stem

(expectations for the future), in the youngest age groups very low correlations

were found between satisfaction with the relationship and both gains (r = 0.051;

n.s.) and maintenance (r = 0.146; n.s.), but in the positive direction in both cases.

As expected, the direction of these correlations differed in the oldest groups


Figure 1. Age-differential pattern of the associations between motivational

orientation of goals for the neutral stem and satisfaction with the relationship.

depending on the motivational orientation of goals: positive for maintenance

(r = 0.313; p < 0.01 in the 50-59 group and r = 0.191; p < 0.05 in the 60+ group),

negative for gains (r = –0.149; n.s. in the 50-59 group and r = –0.139; n.s. in the

60+ group). Results were similar for responses to the positive stem (aspirations),

as can be observed in Figure 2. However, in the youngest group, the correlation

between satisfaction with the relationship and gains was positive (r = 0.09; n.s.),

whereas the correlation between marital satisfaction and maintenance was nega-

tive (r = –0.126; n.s.), as expected.

As for the negative stem (see Figure 3), concerns related to the relationship

were negatively associated with satisfaction with the relationship in the younger

groups (r = –0.264, p < 0.01 in the 20-29 group and r = –0.294, p < 0.01 in the

30-39 group). Conversely, in these groups concerns focused on external issues

were associated with higher levels of satisfaction with the relationship (r = 0.265,

p < 0.01 in both groups). However, in older groups concerns focused on the

relationship and on external issues are no longer associated with satisfaction, and

this association is only present in the case of concerns related to aging and health.


Figure 2. Age-differential pattern of the associations between motivational

orientation of goals for the positive stem and satisfaction with the relationship.

DISCUSSION

Our study has examined goals related to couple relationships across adult-

hood. Specifically, it has had two objectives. The first was to explore the content

and motivational orientation of these goals, and the differences in these two

dimensions across age cohorts. The second was to ascertain whether the moti-

vational orientation of goals was related to satisfaction with the relationship.

Goals in Couple Relationships in Different Age Groups

As expected, the content of goals, aspirations, and concerns are associated with

age and these age-related changes roughly follow the path proposed by Erikson.

Thus, hopes in the youngest groups were related to consolidating relationships,

making sure that the normative features of an adult couple (living together,


Figure 3. Age-differential pattern of the associations between future

concerns and satisfaction with the relationship.

Note: Point-biserial correlation between “Focus on the relationship” and

“Satisfaction with the relationship” could not be calculated for the older group,

as nobody in that group mentioned such type of concern.

housing, having children) are acquired, and that the couple is strong enough to

survive (holding onto the positive aspects that the couple currently enjoy). In a

similar vein, the most frequently mentioned concerns in young adulthood were

related to the relationship ending or deteriorating and to the provision of the

resources (money, a job) necessary to ensure the viability of the couple. Such goals

are similar to the challenges in the intimacy vs. isolation conflict associated by

Erikson with young adulthood.

The aspirations of the middle-aged members of couples are, in part, similar to

the challenges that emerge in the generativity vs. stagnation stage identified by

Erikson (1982). For this cohort, being able to care for future generations is the

main mid-life challenge in the family arena. Thus, coping with the multiple

challenges involved in raising children and obtaining the necessary resources

to support the family (the generativity stage) reaches a peak between 30 and 50

years. Family, which is an expectation in earlier stages of a relationship, becomes

a source of concern in middle adulthood. However, according to our results,

participants in middle adulthood also seemed to be more conservative than

expansive, and mentioned stability and keeping the bond fresh. These concerns

would appear to be more closely related to the intimacy crisis and were more

prevalent than we would have expected. This result suggests that Erikson’s task

of couple intimacy remains a relevant issue across adulthood, rather than being a

challenge that is dealt with in young adulthood and solved in the early stages of

a couple’s relationship.

Finally, for older adults, external quests no longer seem to be attractive and

maintaining the affective quality of the bond is no longer particularly important.

For these individuals, aspirations and concerns are more basic: the relationship

must continue as it is, and threats posed by illness or death need to be kept at bay.

As in young adulthood, the concern for older adults is the permanence of the

relationship. However, unlike young adults, older cohorts seem not to perceive

the danger in the dissolution of the intimate bond or in the disappearance of

love, but rather in threats to the physical health of the two members. This result

confirms previous findings about the importance that health may have for the

aspirations of older adults (e.g., Cross & Markus, 1991; Hooker, 1992; Smith &

Freund, 2002). This issue is of such importance at this stage of life that it makes

itself manifest in the couple-related goals.

Life span theory proposes that aspirations can take three basic motivational

orientations: growth/gain, maintenance and prevention of loss (Baltes, 1997;

Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006; Baltes & Smith, 2004). However, the

participants in our study did not differentiate between these orientations when

asked to report neutral or positive expectations. In both cases, goals related to

gains and maintenance were clearly present in their responses, whilst comments

about losses or prevention of losses were virtually absent, only appearing when

participants were asked about concerns, but not when questioned about expec-

tations or hopes. As Ebner, Freund, and Baltes (2006) suggest, when people


consider their positive goals (e.g., hopes, things to achieve in the future),

maintenance and prevention of loss may represent just one dimension. As the

probability of losses increases (as is the case among the older cohorts), a way of

preventing such losses is to set and to try to attain maintenance goals. Thus,

maintenance could include upholding the stability of positive aspects in the

current situation or even continuing positive changes (e.g., Timmer, Steverink,

Stevens, & Dittman-Kohli, 2003), but it also subsumes goals aimed at prevent-

ing negative changes. Whatever the case, they both result in the maintenance of

the status quo.

The results obtained in response to the neutral and positive sentence stems

confirm the predictions of life span theory regarding age-related differences in

goal orientations. Younger adults showed, on average, a stronger orientation

toward gains than toward maintenance. As age increases, an orientation toward

further gains is less frequent and references to maintenance are more common.

In middle-aged groups (people in their 40s and 50s), the primary focus of

goals is no longer gains, but maintenance. Confirming these predictions, older

adults’ references to maintenance clearly outnumbered those related to further

gains. In the same vein, when asked to report concerns, most of them were

related with aging and health, foreseeing a future risk for the relationship in

this arena. Therefore, our results regarding couple-related goals seem to be a

particular case of a general, age-related trend of readjusting goals so that efforts

are increasingly directed not to gain, but rather to loss avoidance.

However, unlike other studies focused on goals from a life span perspective,

which report that growth can still be an important motivational orientation in

the second half of life (Smith & Freund, 2002; Heckhausen, Dixon, & Baltes,

1989) and that older adults tend to rate their goals as being similarly oriented

toward growth and maintenance (Ebner, Freund, & Baltes, 2006), our results

also suggest that the preference for maintenance, at least in couple-oriented

goals, may well begin in earlier stages of the life span, since comments about

gains were only more frequent than those about maintenance in the two

youngest age groups (from 20 to 39 years of age). The positive relationship

between an orientation toward maintenance and satisfaction with the rela-

tionship also suggests that being conservative in couple relationships is of

particular relevance.

Although our study did not provide any specific evidence to account for

this difference, the context to which the goals refer (i.e., the couple relation-

ship) may account in part for these results. For many people, the couple

relationship is likely to be a basic tenet of life, the fundamental bond on

which many other life priorities (and goals) hinge. If that bond were to dis-

appear or weaken, it would seriously disrupt their emotions, but also their

family, social ties, finances or life styles. Thus, it seems plausible that, once

consolidated, people become conservative and seek no changes in their

couple relationship.


Goals and Satisfaction with the Relationship

As for the second objective of the study, which sought to determine whether

the motivational orientation of goals was related to satisfaction with the relation-

ship, the results partially confirm our hypotheses concerning the age-related

associations between both factors. As expected, there were age-related differences

in the associations between the motivational orientation of goals and satisfaction

with the relationship. Specifically, with the exception of the youngest groups,

satisfaction with the relationship was negatively related to orientation toward

gains, and positively related to maintenance. The reverse tendency was expected

for the youngest cohorts, but it only appeared in the responses of the 20- to

29-year-old group for the positive stem. In the case of the neutral stem, satisfaction

with the relationship and a motivational orientation were not significantly related

in the youngest groups. As for concerns, our results were also coherent with

these trends: between the ages of 20 and 39, focusing on external issues (family

or finances, among others) seemed to be more beneficial for satisfaction than

expressing concerns limited to the relationship and its survival. However, after

the age of 40, focusing on external concerns was no longer associated with

satisfaction, while concerns about aging and health seemed to be more beneficial.

These results suggest that in middle and older adulthood individuals actually

benefitted from a maintenance orientation in their couple-related goals, a finding

that confirms our expectations. However, our results differ from those reported

elsewhere (e.g., Ebner, Freund, & Baltes, 2006) in two ways: firstly, the benefits

of focusing on maintenance began in earlier stages, were pervasive among age

cohorts of 40 and over, and did not increase with age. Secondly, satisfaction

with the relationship among the younger group did not benefit in any clear way

from focusing on gains, but among older groups it benefitted from focusing

on maintenance. These discrepancies are open to alternative interpretations.

For instance, motivational orientations in couple relationships might function

differently from those in other life contexts, favoring maintenance over change.

As previously discussed, couple relationships might be so fundamental that, once

the couple is formed, no further improvement in marital satisfaction can be

expected from aspiring to developmental-graded gains. However, emphasizing

maintenance and seeking to keep the bond safe (including concerns about health

and aging) may boost this kind of satisfaction.

Limitations and Future Perspectives

The study has several limitations which need to be taken into account in any

interpretation of the results. Firstly, this is a cross-sectional study, so develop-

mental and cohort effects are confused. For instance, age differences could have

been related to a generational change as regards people’s thinking as to what

makes a couple work and what is important in a couple relationship. Secondly, the

study was conducted with a sample gathered using a non-probabilistic procedure.


The sample only included people that attended civic centers and who volunteered

to participate in the study. Given the objectives and nature of the activities that

civic centers offer, they are likely to attract a certain profile of people, with a

particularly high level of social involvement and health (especially among

older people). This could have had an impact on the results and so they may not

be generalized to other populations. However, as we have shown, the association

of goals with age and satisfaction seems to remain stable even when other

potentially confounding variables, such as subjective health, having children

(or not) or the length of the relationship, were taken into account, which suggests

that the associations are relatively solid. Thirdly, in general, only one goal per

stem was reported. This suggests that the participant probably had to select

one goal from a range of goals that people may have for their future. Thus, we

were not able to study how wide the goal repertoire was or to examine alternative

expectations. However, the inclusion of three different stems, and the fact that

it would seem that individuals select the most salient response in sentence-

completion methods (e.g., Nuttin, 1985), suggests that the couple-related goals

analyzed were sufficiently relevant.

Despite these limitations, our study shows that there are specific goals asso-

ciated with couple relationships and, in turn, it emphasizes the importance of

these goals for understanding such relationships, an issue that has received little

attention in the literature. Our results contribute to research findings on goals

in couple relationships showing how these goals change as people grow older,

suggesting a shift in orientation from gain toward maintenance at an earlier age

than is typically reported for goals in other life contexts. Our results also stress

the changing link between these goals and satisfaction with the relationship

across different stages of the life span. This link has obvious implications for

practical interventions involving couples, which need to take expectations,

aspirations and concerns into consideration and reflect on how they might be

best adjusted to different life stages.

Finally, the study opens up new lines of future research. For instance, it

would be interesting to see if the age-related trends identified by the study

continue in the latter stages of life, a period in which the resources available

decrease dramatically and illness and dependency are no longer future concerns,

but often daily-life problems (Baltes & Smith, 2003). Additionally, taking

into account the goals of both members in the couple relationship, focusing

above all on areas of agreement and disagreement, could help to shed further

light on the association between goals and satisfaction with the relationship

identified in our study, since such satisfaction might not only be related to the

content and orientation of these goals, but also to the degree of agreement between

the partners’ goals.

In any case, understanding couples as dynamic, goal-oriented systems should

help us understand the changes they undergo and the degree of satisfaction

they provide their respective members.


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Direct reprint requests to:

Feliciano Villar

Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology

University of Barcelona

Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 171

Barcelona 08035, Spain

e-mail: [email protected]


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