title: Happy you, healthy me? Having a happy partner is independently associated with better health in oneself.
abstract: Happy people are healthy people. However, past research has largely overlooked the influence of romantic partners' happiness on physical health, particularly how a person's own emotional and physical well-being might also be affected by the happiness and health of their partner.
  
  
  
  The current study helps fill this gap. In a large nationally representative sample (N = 1,981 couples), a multilevel modeling procedure was employed to explore whether spousal life satisfaction contributes to self-health over and above the contribution of one's own life satisfaction.
  
  
  
  First, own happiness predicted better self-health and exercise (r values > .07), consistent with previous studies. Importantly, spousal happiness also uniquely predicted better self-health (r values > .06), above and beyond own happiness and critical covariates.
  
  
  
  This finding significantly broadens extant assumptions about the link between happiness and health, suggesting novel social mechanisms: simply having a happy partner may enhance health as much as striving to being happy oneself. Candidate pathways that could account for this unique boost are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University.
authors.forename: William J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Chopik
authors.affiliation: Booth School of Business, University of Chicago.
authors.forename: Ed
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: O'Brien
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004644:Emotions; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012747:Sexual Partners / Q000523:psychology*