Judging a book by its older adult cover: age-related expectations and parental preference for children's books.

As they typically have limited direct contact, children's attitudes towards older adults have more opportunity to be shaped by other social influences such as their parents and children's literature. Children's books have been noted for their tendency to portray older adults in stereotypical ways and their tendencies to underrepresent older adults. We investigated how the portrayal of older adults as major versus supporting characters, as well as parents' age-related expectations were related to parental preference for children's books. We designed 24 children's book covers that depicted an older adult as a main character, a younger adult as a main character, or only children. One-hundred-seventy-five parents of children ages 0-12 rated their preference for the covers, their age-related expectations for the books' stories, and their personal aging expectations. Parents preferred covers featuring only children, and this preference was stronger for parents with more positive personal aging expectations. Cover preference was further predicted by age-related story expectations. When parents expected a book to conform to older-age stereotypes, they liked that particular cover less. Controlling for parents' age-related story expectations for each book resulted in near equal levels of preference for all types of book covers. Carefully designed children's books could provide an opportunity to increased vicarious intergenerational contact. These finding suggests that parents' interest in selecting these books for their children will be higher when they do not perceive the books to align with older-age stereotypes. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04298-6.

When and How to Regulate: Everyday Emotion-Regulation Strategy Use and Stressor Intensity.

Contextual factors shape emotion regulation (ER). The intensity of emotional stimuli may be such a contextual factor that influences the selection and moderates the effectiveness of ER strategies in reducing negative affect (NA). Prior research has shown that, on average, when emotional stimuli were more intense, distraction was selected over reappraisal (and vice versa). This pattern was previously shown to be adaptive as the preferred strategies were more efficient in the respective contexts. Here, we investigated whether stressor intensity predicted strategy use and effectiveness in similar ways in daily life. We examined five ER strategies (reappraisal, reflection, acceptance, distraction, and rumination) in relation to the intensity of everyday stressors, using two waves of experience-sampling data (N = 156). In accordance with our hypotheses, reappraisal, reflection, and acceptance were used less, and rumination was used more, when stressors were more intense. Moreover, results suggested that distraction was more effective, and rumination more detrimental the higher the stressor intensity. Against our hypotheses, distraction did not covary with stressor intensity, and there was no evidence that reappraisal, reflection, and acceptance were more effective at lower levels of stressor intensity. Instead, when examined individually, reflection and reappraisal (like distraction) were more effective at higher levels of stressor intensity. In sum, stressor intensity predicted ER selection and moderated strategy effectiveness, but the results also point to a more complex ER strategy use in daily life than in the laboratory. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00087-1.

A domain-differentiated approach to everyday emotion regulation from adolescence to older age.

Flexibly using different emotion-regulation (ER) strategies in different situational contexts, such as domains, has been argued to promote effective emotion regulation. Additionally, emotion regulation processes may change with age as narrowing time horizons shift emotion-regulation preferences. The purpose of the present study was to examine the occurrence and effectiveness of flexible emotion regulation in response to daily hassles from different domains within the age range from adolescence to old age. Participants, ranging from 14 to 88 years old (N = 325), completed an experience-sampling study of approximately 9 days over a 3-week period. At each momentary assessment, participants reported on their hassles, emotion-regulation strategies, and affect. As expected, strategy use varied across individuals and domains. For example, emotion expression and suppression were typical responses to interpersonal hassles, whereas social sharing was often used in response to work/school hassles. In situations wherein hassles included multiple life domains, participants reported the use of more emotion-regulation strategies than for single-domain hassles. Although flexible emotion regulation was evident in participants' responses to hassles, the expectation that it would be associated with lower hassle reactivity was not confirmed. These patterns were, for the most part, consistent across ages. This study contributes new insights into situational characteristics that are associated with emotion-regulation flexibility, showing that hassles domains are important for strategy selection, and that this holds from adolescence to old age. It also suggests that such defined emotion-regulation flexibility is not as strongly linked to emotion-regulation effectiveness as has been previously suggested. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of extraversion and neuroticism for experiencing stress during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although long postulated, it has been scarcely researched how personality traits play out differently in distinct situations. We examined if Neuroticism and Extraversion, personality traits known to moderate stress processes, function differently in highly stressful situations requiring reduced social contact, that is, the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on past findings, we expected neuroticism to be associated with exacerbated perceptions of stress. In contrast to past findings, we expected extraversion, which usually ameliorates stress, to be associated with intensified perceptions of stress, especially in regard to the sociability facet. During the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, one-hundred-thirty adults (age M = 21.7 years) reported on their personality traits including their facets with the BFI-2, COVID-19-related stressors, and their perceived stress during the last month (using the PSS). Findings indicated that neuroticism was associated with higher perceived stress regardless of the COVID-19-related stressors experienced. Facet level analysis revealed differences for anxiety, depression, and volatility. Importantly, trait extraversion was unassociated with stress experiences, whereas specifically the facet of sociability was associated with higher perceived stress. Also, the facets of assertiveness and energy both moderated the relationship between COVID-19-related stressors and perceived stress. In line with the transactional theory of stress, our findings indicate that perceptions of stress were best understood by looking at the interaction of environmental stressors and personality differences. Furthermore, the study substantiates that facets of personality traits offer unique information beyond broad traits in specific contexts.

Daily experiences of subjective age discordance and well-being.

Subjective age discordance (SAD) captures the difference between how old one feels and how old one would ideally like to be. We investigated the presence, strength, and fluctuation of this discordance in daily life as well as its relationship to various indicators of physical and psychological well-being with an 8-day diary study. Participants were 116 older and 107 younger adults who completed daily measures of felt age, ideal age, positive and negative affect, physical symptoms, and stressors. We operationalized SAD as felt age minus ideal age divided by chronological age and compared the utility of this discordance to the more established proportional discrepancy of felt age from chronological age. Daily SAD was present in both age groups, such that individuals idealized younger ages than they felt. This discordance was larger in older than younger adults, although younger adults exhibited more daily fluctuations in SAD. Within-person increases in SAD were associated with lower positive affect, whereas larger SAD at the between-person level was associated with more physical symptoms and stressors. These relationships were over and above the associations of felt and chronological age with the outcomes suggesting the utility of daily SAD for understanding daily physical and psychological well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Feeling Young and in Control: Daily Control Beliefs Are Associated With Younger Subjective Ages.

OBJECTIVES: Daily variations in control beliefs are associated with developmental outcomes. We predicted that on days when older adults feel more in control than their personal average, they would also report feeling younger, and explored the relationship in younger adults. METHOD: A total of 116 older and 107 younger adults completed a 9-day daily diary study. On Day 1 participants reported on demographic variables. On Days 2-9, participants reported their daily subjective age, daily control beliefs, daily stressors, and daily physical health symptoms. All measures were completed online via Qualtrics. Results were analyzed using multilevel models. RESULTS: Controlling for age, gender, education, daily stressors, daily physical health, and average control, there was a significant main effect of daily control beliefs on daily subjective age. Older adults felt significantly younger on days with a greater sense of control than usual, but this effect was absent in younger adults. For younger adults, average exposure to daily stressors and daily fluctuations in physical health were better predictors of daily subjective age. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that higher daily control is associated with younger subjective ages in older adults, whereas other factors may play a more central role in the daily variations of younger adults' subjective ages.

It's "the Joneses": the influence of objective and subjective socioeconomic status on subjective perceptions of aging.

Positive subjective perceptions of aging predict various well-being, physical health, mental health, and longevity outcomes. Thus, it is important to consider what factors contribute to their formation. Socioeconomic status (SES) has been hypothesized to be one such factor, but past research has been mixed. We propose that subjective assessments of SES may better predict subjective perceptions of aging than traditional objective measures (e.g., income and education). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of objective and subjective indicators of SES on subjective perceptions of aging. Participants (n = 296) from the Mindfulness and Anticipatory Coping Everyday study were recruited with a Human Intelligence Task on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Participants reported on their SES (i.e., income, education, and subjective social status) and subjective perceptions of aging (i.e., attitudes toward own aging, subjective age, and awareness of age-related gains and losses). Data were analyzed via hierarchical multiple regression with demographic and health variables entered first, followed by income and education, then subjective social status. Results demonstrated that although objective measures of SES did not contribute to predicting subjective perceptions of aging, those who rated themselves subjectively higher in their community social standing were more likely to possess positive aging attitudes, younger subjective ages, more awareness of age-related gains, and fewer awareness of age-related losses. These findings suggest that perceptions of doing better than one's neighbors (i.e., "the Joneses") may matter more for understanding subjective perceptions of aging than objective indicators of social status.

Daily Stressor Forecasts and Anticipatory Coping: Age Differences in Dynamic, Domain-Specific Processes.

Objective: We focused on the temporal space before stressor exposure and examined two constructs-daily stressor forecasting and anticipatory coping-for daily emotional well-being. Method: One hundred and seven younger (M age = 19.44, range 18-36) and 116 older (M age = 64.71, range 60-90) participants reported on 1,627 total days via an online daily diary study. Participants reported baseline demographic information (Day 1) and stressor forecasts, anticipatory coping, stressor exposure, and negative affect (Days 2-9). Results: We found significant intraindividual variability in stressor forecasts. Increases in forecasts of upcoming stressors were associated with increases in anticipatory coping of those stressors in some domains. Older adults forecasted more upcoming home stressors than younger adults, but older adults reported less anticipatory coping than younger adults. Finally, we found age differences in emotional reactivity to daily home stressors depending on previous-day forecasts and coping of those home stressors. Forecasting home stressors was associated with a stronger reduction in reactivity for younger adults relative to older adults, but stagnant deliberation coping was associated with increased reactivity for younger adults, not for older adults. Discussion: Daily stressor forecasts are dynamic and situation-specific and linked to daily anticipatory coping and age differences in reactivity to home stressors.

Negative Aging Attitudes Predict Greater Reactivity to Daily Stressors in Older Adults.

Objectives: In order to understand conflicting findings regarding the emotional reactions of older adults to daily stressors, we examined the possibility that negative aging attitudes could function as an important individual differences factor related to stressor reactivity. Method: Using a daily dairy design, we examined the aging attitudes of 43 older adults reporting on 380 total days. Participants reported their aging attitudes on Day 1, followed by their stressor exposure and negative affect on Days 2-9. Covariates included age, gender, education, and personality. Results: Using multilevel modeling, our results suggest that individuals with more positive aging attitudes report consistent levels of affect across study days regardless of stressors, whereas those with more negative aging attitudes reported increased emotional reactivity to daily stressors. Discussion: Positive aging attitudes may serve as a resource that helps buffer reactions to daily stressors.

Aging Attitudes and Daily Awareness of Age-Related Change Interact to Predict Negative Affect.

Background and Objectives: Possessing more positive views of one's own aging is associated with better self-rated health, reduced reactivity to stressors, and better well-being. We examined two components of aging attitudes: awareness of age-related change (AARC) of loss and gain experiences and attitudes toward own aging (ATOA). We expected that AARC would vary day-to-day and interact with ATOA to predict daily negative affect. Research Design and Methods: One hundred and sixteen participants (61% women, M age = 64.71, range 60-90) reported on 743 total days via an online daily diary study. On Day 1, participants reported baseline ATOA and baseline AARC for losses and gains. On Days 2-9, daily stressor exposure, daily AARC losses and gains, and negative affect were reported. Results: Unconditional multilevel models revealed significant within-person fluctuation in daily AARC losses and gains. Controlling for daily stressors, age, and baseline AARC, daily increases in AARC losses were associated with increases in negative affect and a cross-level interaction revealed that this effect was stronger for those with more positive ATOA. Discussion and Implications: AARC gains and losses vary from day-to-day, suggesting that interventions targeting the contextual fluctuations in daily life may be a promising avenue for future research. Specifically, individuals who feel generally positive about their own aging, although less likely to report awareness of daily age-related losses, may be the most vulnerable when they do occur. Efforts to reduce daily AARC losses (e.g., limiting activities due to age, receiving help because others assume age-related deficits) may improve the daily well-being of older adults.

The Combined Effects of Daily Stressors and Major Life Events on Daily Subjective Ages.

OBJECTIVES: Stressors may be a contributing factor in determining how old an individual feels, looks, or would like to be. Currently, little research has been devoted to understanding the relationship between stressors and subjective age in older adults. We focus on the combined impact of major life-event stressors and daily stressors on multiple indicators of subjective age: felt age, ideal age, and look age. Furthermore, we examine the process by which daily stressors relate to subjective ages by testing whether positive affect, control, and negative affect mediate this relationship. METHOD: Using a daily-diary design, the current study measured older adults' (60-96 years old) stressors, subjective ages, personal control, and affect. RESULTS: Felt, ideal, and look ages each demonstrated a unique pattern of interactions between daily stressors and major life-event stressors. Furthermore, our findings suggest that on the daily level, the relationship between stressors and felt age is mediated by negative affect but not by control and positive affect. DISCUSSION: Findings indicate the need to consider the broader contextual picture of stressors, as well as their differential impact on multiple indicators of subjective age.