Older Adults share an agreement on experiences that elicit love: A study of consensus and individual differences in judgments

Abstract Objectives Positive social connections are key ingredients for healthy aging. We studied older adults’ shared agreement on loving experiences and individual differences in their decisions-making to unlock critical information about how this developmental group connects socially. Methods To explore shared agreement on experiences of love, we surveyed a representative sample (N=400) of adults aged 65 years and older in the United States. They evaluated 61 experiences to determine whether older adults believe they typically evoke feelings of love in most people. We used a Bayesian decision tree model to account for individual differences in respondents’ knowledge and decision-making styles when deriving the consensus on these experiences. Results We found a consensus among older adults on experiences of love. In addition, individual differences in knowledge on love and decision-making styles were meaningfully linked to person-level characteristics: female participants and those with higher levels of compassion had higher levels of knowledge on the consensus, White male participants and those with higher levels of loneliness were more likely to guess the shared agreement when they were uncertain, and non-White participants were more likely to guess “True.” Discussion Experiences of love for older adults include both romantic and non-romantic settings. Older adults tended to have different knowledge levels regarding the consensus on these experiences. Future research could examine whether fostering compassion or raising awareness about these loving experiences in daily life might improve well-being for older adults. Increased knowledge regarding these experiences may decrease misunderstandings or loneliness by sharing more loving experiences with others.