Posted on 08/06/2015 3:07:27 AM PDT by markomalley
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is spending nearly $200,000 studying the “ups and downs” of older Americans’ dating lives.
The project cites a pressing need for research on how single adults over 60 years old date. The study is entitled “Understanding Age-Related Changes in Relationship Maintenance Strategies.”
“A wealth of research indicates that high quality romantic relationships allow individuals to thrive both emotionally and physically,” a NSF grant for the project states. “In fact, the impact of close relationships on health has been shown to be larger than the impact of a variety of negative health behaviors, such as smoking, excessive drinking, and obesity. Unfortunately, longer life expectancies and high divorce rates have contributed to a new social reality in which older adults (i.e., age 60+) increasingly find themselves unpartnered and searching for companionship.”
“Despite these societal trends, research on how older adults form and maintain satisfying new romantic relationships is scarce,” the grant said.
“Thus, the proposed research is designed to fill this gap, and will test if there are potential age-related changes in the way individuals navigate the inevitable ups and downs of a new romantic relationship.”
The project began this May and has cost taxpayers $185,850. The study is expected to continue through 2018.
The study, being conducted by the University of Texas at Austin, will compare how old and young people handle relationship struggles, in both marriages and new relationships.
The grant said that research from the project would be “informative for improving happiness and health throughout the lifespan.”
The project supposes that older adults may be better equipped to handle relationship issues because of their experience, though results may vary.
“Specifically, the goal of the current proposal is to examine whether the life experience that comes with age facilitates positive and constructive responses when relationship conflicts arise,” the grant said. “Integrating insights from both the aging and the close relationships literatures suggests that the answer to this question may depend on the relational context.”
/sarc
Academia is an industry. Like public art its patron is the government. It’s not necessary to produce a usable or even useful product. The purpose is to give jobs to people who support the government with their vote.
In college I worked for a doctor. He and his graduate students lived off the grants. They resentfully generated data and wrote reports about a week before the output was due. The first question was, what are they trying to prove. Any data contradicting that proof was rejected or “scaled.”
In my dreams.
Sigh...
Look at granny run, run, there's something on grand-daddy's mind.
He went to the doctor, got a brand new pill. The doctor said, "son, you ain't over the hill."
Now he can't sit still.
Great, gosh, almighty, won't you ...
It isn’t the subject of the grant study. It is who the particular ‘researcher’ at UT Austin IS and who he/she knows.
They could give a crap about old people. They’d much rather just give them a pill and be done with it.
I doubt that there are many “ups” at that age, especially for the men.
DANG!
“ups and downs”?
Much slower.
Now give me my 200 thou.
Lemme tell y’all ‘bout our relationship.
As you might have read, i am 63, and ‘she’ is kinda close to that.
We started 15 years ago. In that time, ‘she’ has developed illnesses stemming from toxic mold in her workplace, to where her doctor has already pronounced her dead, just waiting for the heart to stop. As for me, I have been told that I am a diabetic, I have PED, I have congestive heart failure.
Viagra? Can you spell the word ‘don’t’, (for it is unsure as to whom would kill whom in the process)?
We share life as we can, when we get together. ‘She’ has a busy family, where as I am I, alone, but we are never out of contact.
There are no secrets, no hidden agendas, no ulterior motives.
The good news is that the study isn't of queers and lesbians like seemingly every other tax wasting study.
Golden Girls Napl?
186 grand? Wow! They must have run up quite a bar tab while hanging around in The Villages.
This study makes as much sense as the study conducted several years ago by a professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette to determine why women bare their breasts at Mardi Gras parades. I think this study cost about $300K
The House of Representatives should reduce the next National Science Foundation appropriation by triple the cost of this inane study. They should do this for every organization that conducts these frivolous studies and receives federal taxpayer dollars. Then we would see some sanity included in the process.
With all the drugs they pump into seniors, having a sex life is RARE. You are doped up on Blood Pressure meds, pain meds, cholesterol drugs, and because they can’t fix what Big Pharma destroyed, or only treat symptoms...PAIN of OA, OP, drugs like Lyrica cause loss of Libido. So It doesn’t cost a dime to know seniors do not have much of a sex life even with a dam$ ED drug.
The project supposes that older adults may be better equipped to handle relationship issues because of their experience, though results may vary.
yep Mileage May Vary!!
Im betting that this study would make a great Movie in the mold of “Grumpy Old Men”.
I like the way she handles those balls.
And people wonder why Trump is popular. This is why the average person hates politicians. All of them.
They always were.
I said that when I was 16.
I'm still saying that, although, when I look at some of what's taken these days, some people will settle for anything.
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