When Harry Met Sally: Older Adult Spouses' First Encounter Reminiscing and Well-Being.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Interest in reminiscence activities for older adults has grown in recent years, but the benefits of co-reminiscence are not well-known. Drawing from a narrative identity framework, this study examined older adult spouses' co-reminiscence about their first encounters. We hypothesized that perceived closeness and support increase when spouses co-reminisce and that greater perceptions of closeness and support after reminiscing relate to lower depressive symptoms and greater marital satisfaction in daily life. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: One hundred and one couples completed questionnaires measuring marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms at home and then participated in a laboratory session in which they co-reminisced about their first encounters. Self-reported perceived support and relationship closeness were obtained before and after reminiscence. t Tests and the Actor Partner Interdependence Model were used to examine hypotheses. RESULTS: As hypothesized, closeness and perceived support increased from pre- to postreminiscence for husbands and wives. In addition, one's own relationship closeness after reminiscence was positively associated with own marital satisfaction (actor effect). One's perceived support after reminiscence was positively related to spouse's marital satisfaction and negatively associated with their spouse's depressive symptoms (partner effects). DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Findings suggest that co-reminiscence about early relationship development can boost feelings of closeness and support for older adults. Benefiting from co-reminiscence in this way also appears to indicate broader relationship and individual well-being. Brief co-reminiscence activities may nurture late-life relational well-being.

Managing emotions in the face of discrimination: The differential effects of self-immersion, self-distanced reappraisal, and positive reappraisal.

Contending with sexism is associated with negative affective outcomes, including increased anger, anxiety, and depression. Prior research demonstrates that the use of emotion-regulation strategies, such as self-distanced reappraisal, when contending with general negative interpersonal experiences, can help people manage their emotions, attenuating the associated negative affect. The present research considers whether the affective benefits of reappraisal extend to past experiences of discrimination. Specifically, we examine whether using self-distanced reappraisal (Studies 1 and 2) or positive reappraisal (Study 2) when contending with sexism yields more positive and less negative affective outcomes, relative to engaging in self-immersion. Contrary to previous research examining more general negative interpersonal experiences, we find limited evidence that self-distanced reappraisal is an effective emotion-regulation strategy for women contending with sexism (N = 1,236). The present work offers preliminary evidence, however, that positive reappraisal may be a promising emotion-regulation strategy that reduces the negative affective consequences associated with reliving past instances of sexism, compared with either self-immersion or self-distanced reappraisal. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the efficacy of different emotion-regulation strategies in the context of discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Laughter and short-term blood pressure reactivity in middle-aged and older adult spousal support interactions.

OBJECTIVE: Theories suggest that laughter decreases negative affect and enhances social bonds; however, no studies have examined the benefits of laughter on stress biomarkers in dyads. This study examined the hypotheses that individual and shared laughter would be associated with lower blood pressure reactivity and decreased self-reported and perceived partner distress for the target and spouse in a social support interaction. METHOD: One hundred seventy-three middle-aged and older adult couples from a larger study were video-recorded, and their blood pressure was monitored continuously in the laboratory during a resting baseline, during a social support interaction in which they discussed a target's fear related to aging, and while playing a game (used as a comparison). Both partners self-reported their own and perceived partner distress after the support interaction. Laughter behavior was coded using the Facial Action Coding System criteria. RESULTS: According to Actor Partner Interdependence Models, during the support interaction, the more the target laughed, the lower the spouse's systolic blood pressure was (partner effect). Also, greater laughter was associated with less self-reported and perceived partner distress for targets and spouses (actor effects). There were no other significant associations between individual laughter, shared laughter, systolic or diastolic blood pressure, and distress. Models controlled for gender, marital satisfaction, baseline blood pressure, and the target's baseline distress rating of their fear. CONCLUSIONS: In social support interactions, targets' laughter may have short-term blood pressure benefits for caregiving spouses and distress reducing benefits for both spouses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Disrupting Beliefs in Racial Progress: Reminders of Persistent Racism Alter Perceptions of Past, But Not Current, Racial Economic Equality.

Although there has been limited progress toward economic equality between Americans over the past half-century, many Americans are largely unaware of the persistence of economic racial disparities. One intervention for this widespread ignorance is to inform White Americans of the impact of racism on the outcomes of Black Americans. In two studies, we attempted to improve the accuracy of Whites' perceptions of racial progress and estimates of contemporary racial economic equality. Reminding White Americans about the persistence of racial disparities produced smaller overestimates of how much progress had been made toward racial economic equality between 1963 and 2016. Rather than modifying overestimates of contemporary racial economic equality, participants who read about disparities assessed the past as more equitable than participants who did not. We discuss implications of these findings for efforts to address Whites' misperceptions of racial economic equality and to challenge narratives of American racial progress.

The synchronization of collective beliefs: From dyadic interactions to network convergence.

Systems of beliefs organized around religion, politics, and health constitute the building blocks of human communities. One central feature of these collectively held beliefs is their dynamic nature. Here, we study the dynamics of belief endorsement in lab-created 12-member networks using a 2-phase communication model. Individuals first evaluate the believability of a set of beliefs, after which, in Phase 1, some networks listen to a public speaker mentioning a subset of the previously evaluated beliefs while other networks complete a distracter task. In Phase 2, all participants engage in conversations within their network to discuss the initially evaluated beliefs. Believability is then measured both post conversation and after one week. We find that the public speaker impacts the community's beliefs by altering their mnemonic accessibility. This influence is long-lasting and amplified by subsequent conversations, resulting in community-wide belief synchronization. These findings point to optimal sociocognitive strategies for combating misinformation in social networks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Gender differences in short-term cardiovascular effects of giving and receiving support for health concerns in marriage.

OBJECTIVE: Little is known about the cardiovascular effects of mutual emotional spousal support given for health concerns. We examined the hypotheses that: (a) mutual support (both spouses giving and receiving support) compared to one-sided or no support, would decrease blood pressure and heart rate in both spouses during a recovery period; and (b) wives would benefit more from mutual support than would husbands. A second aim was to examine gender differences in cardiovascular reactivity, distress, and closeness in response to receiving support regardless of mutuality. METHOD: In 98 married couples (Age 50+), spouses discussed health concerns and were assigned randomly to one of four conditions: neither spouse received support (n = 26), only the wife received support from the husband (n = 22), only the husband received support from the wife (n = 23), or both received support (n = 27). Systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate were measured during baseline, the discussions, and recovery. Distress, closeness, and support were self-reported. Support quality was observationally coded. RESULTS: Mutual support did not affect cardiovascular reactivity. When husbands received support from wives, husbands' blood pressure and distress decreased, and both partners' closeness increased. When wives received support, husbands and wives felt closer, but both partners' heart rate remained elevated and wives felt more distressed. CONCLUSIONS: Receiving support individually may be more important than receiving support mutually for older adult spouses coping with their health concerns. Also, support interventions for couples coping with health conditions should take into account that husbands receive greater benefits from spousal support than wives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Bridge ties bind collective memories.

From families to nations, what binds individuals in social groups is, to a large degree, their shared beliefs, norms, and memories. These emergent outcomes are thought to occur because communication among individuals results in community-wide synchronization. Here, we use experimental manipulations in lab-created networks to investigate how the temporal dynamics of conversations shape the formation of collective memories. We show that when individuals that bridge between clusters (i.e., bridge ties) communicate early on in a series of networked interactions, the network reaches higher mnemonic convergence compared to when individuals first interact within clusters (i.e., cluster ties). This effect, we show, is due to the tradeoffs between initial information diversity and accumulated overlap over time. Our approach provides a framework to analyze and design interventions in social networks that optimize information sharing and diminish the likelihood of information bubbles and polarization.