Psychological Development and Education ›› 2025, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (5): 663-674.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.05.06

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The Relationship between Physical Health and Long-term Changes of Older People Attachment: A 6-year Follow-up Study

ZHAO Muen1,2, HAN Buxin1,2, WANG Dahua3   

  1. 1. Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101;
    2. Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101;
    3. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875
  • Published:2025-09-15

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Abstract: To explore how physical health is associated with attachment changes in older adults, 779 married older adults were tracked for six years (measured once every two years, four times). Multivariate latent variable curve model was used to analyze the relationship between physical health and long-term changes of attachment. We used the three dimensions of physical health measurement in SF36 (physiological function, physical function, and bodily pain) to measure physical health, and OAMAS to measure elderly marital attachment (this is a tool specially developed older peple, including three dimensions: attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and attachment security). The results showed that: (1) In the past six years, the attachment avoidance of older people increased significantly, while the attachment security decreased significantly; (2) Bodily pain has a long-term process effect on attachment anxiety and attachment security in the six years (bodily pain has a marginally significant effect on anxiety). Moreover, the intercept associations corresponded to long-term process effects, suggesting that long-term process effects of bodily pain may shape individual differences in attachment in older age. In conclusion, the attachment changes and develops in later years of Chinese people, and the increase of bodily pain shapes the long-term change of attachment and accumulates into individual differences.

Key words: older adult, attachment, long-term changes, physical health, bodily pain

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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