ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2022
Actor and Partner Effect of Loneliness on Episodic Memory and Verbal Fluency: A Dyadic Multilevel Analysis of Romantic Couples Across 28 Countries.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- From verbal fluency to naturalistic speech: a scoping review of language correlates of loneliness and social isolation in older adults.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Family structure, "Kinlessness", and cognitive decline: Social connectedness and contextual variation in Europe.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2026Article
- Loneliness Subtypes and Their Association With Prevalent and Incident Dementia.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2026Article
- Loneliness Links Adverse Childhood Experiences to Mortality Risk Across 26 Years.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Gendered Marital Power, Depression, and Cognition Among Older Adults in Mexico.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Loneliness and socioemotional memory.The British journal of social psychology · 2025Article
- Dyadic loneliness, age, and cognitive functioning among midlife and older Black couples.Aging & mental health · 2024Article
- Longitudinal Dyadic Associations Between Loneliness and Cognition Among Older Couples in the United States.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Article
- Coping Styles as Mediators Between Purpose in Life and Cognitive Function: A Longitudinal Study.Research on agingArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesThere 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.
methodsData 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.
resultsConsistent 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. DISCUSSION: Both the experience of loneliness and loneliness of a partner have a negative association with cognitive health.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.