Future time perspective: Factor structure, age pattern, and implications for psychological well-being and life satisfaction.

OBJECTIVE: Emerging research challenges the one-factor model of the future time perspective (FTP) scale by demonstrating two- and three-factor models of the FTP scale. METHOD: Three samples (i.e., Switzerland and the United States; N = 2022) explored the factor structure, age pattern differences, tested the link between FTP factors, psychological well-being, and life satisfaction, as well as age as a moderator. RESULTS: We distinguished FTP into opportunities, extension, and constraint factors that corroborated previous research. We did not find a replicable curvilinear age pattern difference on any of the FTP factors. The association between extension and life satisfaction was stronger among younger than older adults. Alternatively, the association between constraint and life satisfaction was stronger among younger than older adults in Samples A and C, and the pattern was reversed in Sample B. Lastly, the association between constraint and environmental mastery was stronger among older adults than younger adults in Sample B and the pattern was reversed in Sample C. CONCLUSION: This variation in the perception of the future is different for people at different periods in life and has an important consequence for living life well, especially a focus on extension and lack of constraint.

Changing personality traits with the help of a digital personality change intervention.

Personality traits predict important life outcomes, such as success in love and work life, well-being, health, and longevity. Given these positive relations to important outcomes, economists, policy makers, and scientists have proposed intervening to change personality traits to promote positive life outcomes. However, nonclinical interventions to change personality traits are lacking so far in large-scale naturalistic populations. This study (n = 1,523) examined the effects of a 3-mo digital personality change intervention using a randomized controlled trial and the smartphone application PEACH (PErsonality coACH). Participants who received the intervention showed greater self-reported changes compared to participants in the waitlist control group who had to wait 1 mo before receiving the intervention. Self-reported changes aligned with intended goals for change and were significant for those desiring to increase on a trait (d = 0.52) and for those desiring to decrease on a trait (d = -0.58). Observers such as friends, family members, or intimate partners also detected significant personality changes in the desired direction for those desiring to increase on a trait (d = 0.35). Observer-reported changes for those desiring to decrease on a trait were not significant (d = -0.22). Moreover, self- and observer-reported changes persisted until 3 mo after the end of the intervention. This work provides the strongest evidence to date that normal personality traits can be changed through intervention in nonclinical samples.

Negative Emotional Reactivity and Somatic Symptoms during Adolescence Predict Adult Health and Wellbeing in Early and Middle Adulthood.

Longitudinal research is lacking with respect to how negative emotional reactivity and somatic symptoms during adolescence set the stage for later health. The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine within-person associations between negative emotional reactivity and somatic symptoms during adolescence and their effects on health and wellbeing in adulthood. Participants (N = 1527; 48.3% female) were assessed annually at the age of 12 to 16 years and at the age of 35 and 45 years. Adolescents with frequent somatic symptoms reported higher reactivity. Individual differences in levels and changes of somatic symptoms and reactivity were independently associated with adult health and wellbeing decades later. The findings underscore the importance of considering how individual differences change during adolescent development.

One year later: Longer-term maintenance effects of a digital intervention to change personality traits.

OBJECTIVE: Recent research suggests that personality traits can be changed by psychological interventions. However, it is unclear whether these intended personality changes can be maintained or merely reflect ephemeral shifts. METHOD: The present study reports 1-year follow-up effects of a 3-month digital intervention for personality trait change. Personality traits were measured before the intervention (pretest: N = 1523), directly after the intervention (posttest: n = 554), and 3 months (follow-up 1: n = 437) and 1 year (follow-up 2: n = 157) after the end of the intervention. RESULTS: Attrition analyses suggest that participants who completed the 1-year follow-up were significantly more open to experience (d = 0.19), less neurotic (d = 0.20), more agreeable (d = 0.35) and more conscientious (d = 0.27) than participants who did not complete the 1-year follow-up. Also, until the 1-year follow-up, personality trait changes achieved remained stable (for those who wanted to increase in extraversion and conscientiousness) or even changed further in the desired direction (for those who wanted to decrease in neuroticism). CONCLUSION: These results suggest that changes in personality traits due to a targeted intervention are not just ephemeral shifts and can even continue.

Self-control in adolescence predicts forgivingness in middle adulthood.

INTRODUCTION: This 33-year study examined associations between self-control development in adolescence and forgivingness, i.e., the dispositional tendency to forgive others, in middle adulthood. METHODS: Participants were 1350 adults aged 45 years (50.6% female). Self-control was measured yearly from age 12 to 16, while forgivingness was measured at age 45. RESULTS: Results indicated significant individual differences in level and change of self-control across the adolescent years and an average mean-level increase. Individual differences in level and change in self-control were independently associated with forgivingness in middle adulthood. Individuals who either entered adolescence with higher self-control, and/or increased in self-control during the adolescent years, reported higher scores in forgivingness at age 45 compared to peers. This pattern held even after controlling for gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and conduct problems in adolescence. CONCLUSION: The current findings demonstrate that developmental processes in adolescence are important for individual differences in the dispositional tendency to forgive others in adulthood.

Within- and between-patients associations between self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and symptom change in cognitive behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety disorder.

OBJECTIVES: There is limited information on how a change in patients' expectations over time results in symptom change in psychotherapy. This study aimed to investigate the changes in patients' expectations and symptoms during treatment and across follow-up as well as to determine the within- and between-patient relationships between two types of patient expectations, that is, self-efficacy and outcome expectation, and symptom change. METHODS: Participants (80 participants × 6 repeated measures; 480 observations) with generalized anxiety disorder were treated using cognitive behavioral therapy and the within- and between-patient scores of self-efficacy and outcome expectation were evaluated in multilevel models as predictors of symptom change. RESULTS: Patients' self-efficacy and outcome expectation increased, whereas severity of their symptoms reduced during and after treatment. At the within-patient (WP) level, an increase in self-efficacy was associated with a decrease in worry and depressive symptoms, and an increase in outcome expectation was associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms. The between-patient (BP) effect, however, was contrary to the WP effect, that is, self-efficacy was positively correlated with worry and outcome expectation was positively correlated with depressive symptoms CONCLUSION: These results highlight the importance of disaggregating the WP variability from BP variability in psychotherapy process-outcome research as they exhibit different associations at the within- and between-patient levels. Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrial.gov (NCT03079336).

Being Social May Be Purposeful in Older Adulthood: A Measurement Burst Design.

OBJECTIVE: Sense of purpose predicts a wide array of positive health, cognitive, and well-being outcomes during older adulthood. However, work is limited regarding how social relations correspond to purposefulness in daily life. The current study explored daily social interactions as a route to daily purposefulness in older adults, using a measurement burst design. METHODS: Older adults completed surveys for three 5-day bursts each spread 6 months apart (Mage = 70.75, SD = 7.23; N = 104). RESULTS: Multilevel models demonstrated that on days when individuals reported more positive social interactions, they reported feeling more purposeful (est. = 0.39, 95% CI [0.28, 0.51]) when accounting for health, employment, and relationship status. Employment status moderated this association, as daily social interactions were more strongly associated with daily purpose for unemployed/retired individuals (est. = -0.23, 95% CI [-0.38, -0.08]). CONCLUSION: Positive social interactions thus may help older adults maintain purposefulness, particularly after retirement.

Mindful of personality trait change: Are treatment effects on personality trait change ephemeral and attributable to changes in states?

OBJECTIVE: Are treatment effects on personality trait change ephemeral and attributable to change in clinical states? Data of an intervention study were used to examine if change in clinical states (e.g., stress or depression) accounts for change in personality traits and to test whether both changes in traits and clinical states were independently associated with substance use. METHOD: Seventy-nine substance use patients (Mage = 25.3, SD = 2.7; 35% female) took part at a 4-week intervention and completed a total of 15 bi-monthly assessments across 28 weeks to measure change in traits and states during and after treatment. RESULTS: The results suggest that participants showed large trait and state changes over time, which happened rapidly with the majority occurring during the first four weeks. Trait and state changes were highly correlated, but not perfectly redundant. Significant variance in personality trait change remained after controlling for change in clinical states. Moreover, both trait and state change independently predicted substance use. CONCLUSION: Personality trait change occurred relatively fast and was maintained until the last follow-up assessment six months after the end of the intervention. Also, the findings point to the notion that the conceptual distinction between traits and states may not be as important as originally thought.

The Effects of Health Care Chatbot Personas With Different Social Roles on the Client-Chatbot Bond and Usage Intentions: Development of a Design Codebook and Web-Based Study.

BACKGROUND: The working alliance refers to an important relationship quality between health professionals and clients that robustly links to treatment success. Recent research shows that clients can develop an affective bond with chatbots. However, few research studies have investigated whether this perceived relationship is affected by the social roles of differing closeness a chatbot can impersonate and by allowing users to choose the social role of a chatbot. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at understanding how the social role of a chatbot can be expressed using a set of interpersonal closeness cues and examining how these social roles affect clients' experiences and the development of an affective bond with the chatbot, depending on clients' characteristics (ie, age and gender) and whether they can freely choose a chatbot's social role. METHODS: Informed by the social role theory and the social response theory, we developed a design codebook for chatbots with different social roles along an interpersonal closeness continuum. Based on this codebook, we manipulated a fictitious health care chatbot to impersonate one of four distinct social roles common in health care settings-institution, expert, peer, and dialogical self-and examined effects on perceived affective bond and usage intentions in a web-based lab study. The study included a total of 251 participants, whose mean age was 41.15 (SD 13.87) years; 57.0% (143/251) of the participants were female. Participants were either randomly assigned to one of the chatbot conditions (no choice: n=202, 80.5%) or could freely choose to interact with one of these chatbot personas (free choice: n=49, 19.5%). Separate multivariate analyses of variance were performed to analyze differences (1) between the chatbot personas within the no-choice group and (2) between the no-choice and the free-choice groups. RESULTS: While the main effect of the chatbot persona on affective bond and usage intentions was insignificant (P=.87), we found differences based on participants' demographic profiles: main effects for gender (P=.04, ηp2=0.115) and age (P<.001, ηp2=0.192) and a significant interaction effect of persona and age (P=.01, ηp2=0.102). Participants younger than 40 years reported higher scores for affective bond and usage intentions for the interpersonally more distant expert and institution chatbots; participants 40 years or older reported higher outcomes for the closer peer and dialogical-self chatbots. The option to freely choose a persona significantly benefited perceptions of the peer chatbot further (eg, free-choice group affective bond: mean 5.28, SD 0.89; no-choice group affective bond: mean 4.54, SD 1.10; P=.003, ηp2=0.117). CONCLUSIONS: Manipulating a chatbot's social role is a possible avenue for health care chatbot designers to tailor clients' chatbot experiences using user-specific demographic factors and to improve clients' perceptions and behavioral intentions toward the chatbot. Our results also emphasize the benefits of letting clients freely choose between chatbots.

Associations between depressive symptoms with perceived future time and opportunities: tests of unique prediction and moderation.

OBJECTIVES: Having a broadened perspective on one's future has been associated with better affective well-being, including reduced reports of depressive symptoms. However, research is limited regarding which aspect of future time perspective is associated with depressive symptoms, and whether these findings are consistent across individuals. METHODS: The current study employed data from a nationally representative sample of Swiss adults (n = 1774; mean age: 49.90 years; 51.8% female). Participants completed measures of future time perspective - both perceptions of future time and future opportunities - and depressive symptoms, in addition to reporting on their age, sex, health, and socioeconomic status (the moderators of interest). RESULTS: Perceived future time and future opportunities were uniquely predictive of depressive symptoms, even when controlling for chronological age and other covariates, though future opportunities held a stronger association with depressive symptoms. Limited evidence was found for moderation, though opportunities may matter more for predicting depressive symptoms among adults in worse health and those with fewer resources. DISCUSSION: Future time perspective appears moderately associated with depressive symptoms in adulthood, and researchers need to consider multiple aspects of future time perspective rather than as a unitary construct.

When the end feels near: sense of purpose predicts well-being as a function of future time perspective.

OBJECTIVES: While sense of purpose is a robust predictor of well-being, little work has considered whether the associations vary based on future time perspective. Exploring this possibility is important given that the extent to which one may pursue their life aims could be dependent upon how much time they feel that they have remaining. METHODS: Using three samples (total n = 2333), the current study considered the association between sense of purpose and future time perspective. Moderation tests also examined whether the associations between sense of purpose and three well-being components (positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction) differed as a function of future time perspective. RESULTS: Across all three studies, people with a broader time perspective reported a higher sense of purpose. Both constructs predicted greater well-being, even after accounting for chronological age. Future time perspective moderated the associations between sense of purpose and well-being, such that the negative association between sense of purpose and negative affect was stronger for those with a broader time perspective and the positive association between sense of purpose and life satisfaction was stronger for those with a limited time perspective. CONCLUSION: The well-being benefits associated with sense of purpose in adulthood may depend on future time perspective. Findings are discussed in the context of how purpose can be harnessed to enhance well-being even when older adults feel that their time left is limited.

Does extraversion increase following a three-hour flirt training? Exploring two training routes.

Flirting situations are opportunities to behave in extraverted ways. However, it is not clear whether engaging in flirting behavior predicts extraversion. The current study explored whether extraversion increases following a 3-h flirt training and compared two training routes to flirting. A two-arm randomized pre-post design with two active conditions were used. Ninety-six adults between 18 and 49 years (67.7% women) were randomized to either: (1) a problem-oriented training strategy that aims to compensate for problems and deficits related to flirting; or (2) a strengths-oriented training strategy that capitalizes on individuals' strengths and resources. The outcome variables were assessed before and 30 days after the training. Participants in both conditions reported higher scores in flirting behavior as well as in extraversion following the trainings. The results suggest that flirt trainings are potentially interesting indirect intervention approaches to increase the expression of extraversion.

Moving beyond promoting 'Happiness' in gerontology interventions.

Researchers have called for gerontologists to spend greater attention on promoting happiness in older adulthood, a point aligned with the general public's interest in finding the keys to being happy later in life. However, targeting and even defining happiness comes with several caveats and challenges, leaving researchers to make difficult decisions regarding measurement and intervention strategies. Instead, the current commentary suggests that gerontology interventions may fare better if researchers focus on specific components of positive psychological functioning. We present sense of purpose and life enjoyment as examples of two such components, and note the potential merit in developing these more focussed intervention programmes. As such, the commentary suggests the value of moving beyond targeting happiness when developing intervention programmes for older adult participants.

Intra- and interindividual differences in the within-person coupling between daily pain and affect of older adults.

The bidirectional interplay between chronic pain and negative affect is well-established in patient samples. However, less is known about the day-to-day relationship between pain and affect of older adults without severe illnesses and to what extent this association differs within and between individuals. A total of 224 participants (Mage = 77.6, SDage = 6.2) reported their daily experience of pain, impairment by their pain and affect during 21 consecutive days. Multilevel modeling results showed that on days with increased pain individuals also reported less positive affect and more negative affect. Time-lagged results indicated a temporal carry-over from yesterday's pain to today's negative affect but not to today's positive affect. Moreover, on days when individuals reported stronger impairment by their pain, they showed a stronger within-person coupling between daily pain and affect in contrast to days with a weaker experience of daily impairment. Yesterday's pain and today's negative affect were more strongly associated within individuals who reported higher levels of impairment. Interindividual differences in the within-person coupling between daily pain and affect were found with regard to general physical health conditions and general satisfaction with health. This study demonstrated the importance of focusing on within-person couplings between daily pain and affect beyond patient samples in order to better understand the maintenance of emotional stability despite daily hassles in older adults' everyday lives.

Future time perspective and affect in daily life across adulthood and old age: Findings from two micro-longitudinal studies.

OBJECTIVE: Future time perspective (FTP) refers to individuals' perceptions of the future as either open-ended or limited. Despite well-documented individual differences in FTP across the adult life span, little is known about short-term variations of FTP within individuals and the within-person associations between FTP and affective experiences. METHOD: Study 1 used data from a daily diary study over 10 days (N = 564) with a wide age range across the adult life span (M = 48.30). Study 2 used data from an ambulatory assessment study over 10 days (N = 136) obtained from healthy older adults (M = 70.45). RESULTS: Findings suggest that 10% to 20% of the total variance in FTP was within-person and 29% to 62% of the total variance in affect was within-person. Multilevel modeling showed that occasions with a more open-ended FTP were occasions with more positive affect, energetic arousal, calmness, and positive valence, and less negative affect. Age moderated the within-person associations between FTP and positive and negative affect as well as energetic arousal, with weaker associations for older adults. CONCLUSIONS: This research demonstrates the importance of looking at both within-person and between-person differences with respect to the associations between FTP and affective experiences in daily life.

Looking on the bright side of life: Gratitude and experiences of interpersonal transgressions in adulthood and daily life.

OBJECTIVE: Gratitude plays an important role in individual and social well-being. However, less is known about the link between gratitude and experiences of interpersonal stressors. The current research examined the associations between gratitude and interpersonal transgressions. METHOD: One cross-sectional study with a broad age range and two daily diary studies (total N = 2,348; total age range: 18-91) were used to test the associations on the between- and within-person level. RESULTS: A consistent result across all studies was that dispositionally grateful individuals tended to report fewer interpersonal transgressions than less grateful people. In turn, people who generally reported more interpersonal transgressions were less grateful in daily life. Moreover, higher gratitude on one specific day was associated with fewer reported transgressions on the same day. However, the results from the daily diary studies indicated differences between the samples. Whereas gratitude was consistently associated with interpersonal transgressions in one daily diary sample, the findings in the second daily diary sample were less consistent. CONCLUSION: The present findings suggest that grateful people tend to perceive their social exchanges differently and/or actually experience fewer interpersonal transgressions. Future work is needed to test the underlying mechanisms of this negative association.

Are open and neurotic behaviors related to cognitive behaviors in daily life of older adults?

OBJECTIVE: Previous research has shown a positive relationship between Openness and cognitive engagement as well as Neuroticism and cognitive complaints at the between-person level. However, less is known about these associations at the within-person level in daily life. Using daily assessments, the present study examined these associations both at the between-person and within-person level. Knowing the within-person associations is important to provide valuable information for simple preventive and interceptive intervention strategies. METHOD: This study sampled 136 healthy older participants (M = 70.45 years; 41.2% male). Open and neurotic behaviors as well as cognitive engagement and complaints were measured every evening over 11 days. RESULTS: The results of multilevel models showed a positive association between open behaviors and cognitive engagement at the between-person and within-person level. For neurotic behaviors and cognitive complaints, no association was found at either level of analysis. CONCLUSIONS: These findings extend previous research by providing the investigation of the associations between specific naturally occurring behaviors related to personality and cognition in the daily life of older adults at the within-person level. Furthermore, these results may offer some basis for future intervention studies that should test whether a simple intervention aimed at promoting Openness-related behaviors may increase cognitive engagement.

How to customize a bona fide psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder? A two-arms, patient blinded, ABAB crossed-therapist randomized clinical implementation trial design [IMPLEMENT 2.0].

BACKGROUND: Bona fide psychotherapy approaches are effective treatments for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) compared to no-treatment conditions. Treatment manuals and protocols allow a relatively high degree of freedom for the way therapists implement these overall treatment packages and there is a systematic lack of knowledge on how therapists should customize these treatments. The present study experimentally examines two implementation strategies of customizing a bona fide psychotherapy approach based on a 16 session time-limited cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) protocol and their relation to the post-session and ultimate treatment outcomes. METHODS: This trial contrasts two different implementation strategies of how to customize the in-session structure of a manual-based CBT-protocol for GAD. The patients will be randomly assigned to two implementation conditions: (1) a systematic focus on subtle changes lasting from 7 to 20 min at the check-in phase of every psychotherapy session and (2) a state-of-the-art (SOTA) check-in phase lasting several minutes mainly focused on the session goals. Potential therapist effects will be examined based on an ABAB crossed-therapist design. Treatment outcomes will be assessed at the following times: post-session outcomes, treatment outcome at post assessment and 6- as well as 12-month follow-up. DISCUSSION: The proposed randomized clinical implementation trial addresses the clinically relevant question of how to customize a bona fide psychotherapy protocol experimentally contrasting two implementation strategies. Through the development and testing of the proposed implementation design, this trial has the potential to inform therapists about efficacious implementation strategies of how to customize a manual-based treatment protocol in respect to the timing of the in-session structure. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This trial was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT03079336 ) at March 14, 2017.

Gratitude From Early Adulthood to Old Age.

Are there age differences in gratitude from early adulthood to old age? The current studies tested several ways by which an association between age and dispositional gratitude may present, by considering multiple measures on both fronts. We used data from three cross-sectional studies (total N = 1,736; total age range: 19-94). The results indicated that (a) age effects in gratitude are more likely to occur for subjective age in terms of future time perspective (i.e., people's perceptions of their remaining opportunities and time) than chronological age; (b) chronological age effects are more domain specific than general in nature; and (c) they are more likely to occur for the instrumental domain as compared to the interpersonal domain. Finally, the results indicated that (d) perceived future time, particularly with respect to remaining opportunities, mediates the relation between chronological age and general gratitude. Overall, the findings suggest that gratitude is subject to a variety of developmental influences across adulthood.

Discrepancy in Personality Perceptions Is Related to Relationship Satisfaction: Findings from Dyadic Latent Discrepancy Analyses.

The current study investigated discrepancies in self-, partner-, and meta-perceptions of the Big Five traits and their associations with relationship satisfaction in intimate couples. The study was based on a subsample of the Swiss study "Co-Development in Personality: Longitudinal Approaches to Personality Development in Dyads Across the Life Span" (CoDiP) including cross-sectional data of 216 heterosexual couples. We adapted the Latent Congruence Model (LCM) for the study of discrepancies in personality perceptions in dyads. Beyond personality trait levels, the discrepancies between self- and partner-perceptions and between partner- and meta-perceptions of the Big Five traits were related to relationship satisfaction as actor and partner effects. In general, flattering and favorable partner-perceptions in relation to self- and meta-perceptions seem to positively contribute to relationship satisfaction. The present study implies that not only personality trait levels but also discrepancies between personality perceptions are important for understanding relationship satisfaction.