The positive effect of activities on well-being is proposed to be mediated by self-conceptualizations and facilitated by socioeconomic status. The hypothesized processes were estimated with LISREL VIII using data from a large cross-sectional survey with a sample of 679 adults aged 65 and older who were representative of older adults living in the Detroit area. Findings indicate that the frequency of performing both leisure and productive activities yields an effect on physical health and depression and that these effects are mediated in part by a sense of self as agentic, but less clearly by a sense of self as social. Furthermore, socioeconomic status, operationalized as formal educational attainment, facilitates the effect of leisure to a greater extent than that of productive activities.

A theoretical model was tested, in which better perceived social network support specifically for a romantic relationship was hypothesized to predict higher relationship well-being which, in turn, would predict more positive mental and physical health outcomes for relationship partners. Furthermore, the model was tested on participants in both same-sex (i.e., homosexual, n = 183) and mixed-sex (i.e., heterosexual, n = 275) relationships. Structural equation modelling indicated that the hypothesized model did fit the data very well; furthermore, no differences in model fit were found between the two relationship groups. Support specifically for the relationship remained a highly significant predictor of the outcome variables, even when general social support and support for one's sexual orientation were controlled.

Gender differences in socialization and marital roles may lead wives to attend more closely to relationship interactions than their spouses do; wives may also assign greater importance to such interactions and deliberate more about them. As a result, wives would possess more vivid memories than their husbands have for events in their relationship. Spouses tape-recorded descriptions of their first date together, a shared vacation and an argument between the two of them. They subsequently assessed the clarity of their own recall of each event. Women reported more vivid memories than did their husbands. Women also attributed greater personal importance to the events, reported reminiscing about them more often and expressed more affect in their event descriptions than did their husbands. The best predictors of spouses' clarity ratings were frequency of reminiscing about the event and, for the argument, outcome of the dispute. After reading typed transcripts of spouses' descriptions of each event, observers completed the same clarity of recall questions as the couples. Observers judged the women's recall to be more vivid. The best predictor of observers' clarity judgments was the number of affective statements in a description. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for social memory and marital relations.

Structural equation modelling was used to assess the strengths of the links between sexual satisfaction and self-reported (a) relationship well-being, (b) mental health, and (c) physical health for women in same-sex (i.e., homosexual, n = 114) versus mixed-sex (i.e., heterosexual, n = 208) relationships. Participants came from a large-scale Internet study. Sexual satisfaction was found to be an extremely strong predictor of relational well-being, a strong predictor of mental health, and a weak to moderately strong predictor of physical health. A two-group comparison model indicated that the strength of these links was the same, regardless of whether the women were in a sexual relationship with a man or with another woman.

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