Momentary loneliness and intrusive thoughts among older adults: the interactive roles of mild cognitive impairment and marital status.

OBJECTIVES: Loneliness is associated with maladaptive cognitions, yet little is known about the association between loneliness and intrusive thinking during older adulthood. Links between loneliness and intrusive thoughts may be particularly strong among individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), who may have greater difficulty regulating emotion and intrusive thoughts. In contrast, having close relationships (e.g. being married) may serve as a protective factor as marital status is associated with better overall well-being. METHOD: Participants were 316 older adults (recruited from the Bronx, NY, as part of a larger study) without dementia at study intake (40% Black; 13% Hispanic, Mage = 77.45 years, 67% women) who completed ecological momentary assessments five times daily for 14 consecutive days (13,957 EMAs total). Multilevel modeling was used to examine the association between momentary loneliness and intrusive thoughts and whether MCI and marital status interacted to moderate this association. RESULTS: There was a significant three-way interaction (ß = -0.17, p < 0.05), such that lagged momentary loneliness was positively associated with intrusive thoughts (3-4 h later) for those with MCI who were not married. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that among older adults with MCI, being married may be a protective factor and being unmarried may be a risk factor for experiencing loneliness and subsequent intrusive thoughts.

Self-reported strategy use and prospective memory: The roles of cue focality and task importance.

Interest in the metacognitive aspects of prospective memory (PM) is growing. Yet, the interplay between participants' metacognitive awareness of PM task demands and features that contribute to successful PM require further attention. To this aim, participants in the current study completed laboratory-based PM tasks of varying difficulty (cue focality: focal, nonfocal-category, or nonfocal-syllable) and reported their strategy use and perceptions of PM task importance. Most participants reported using a strategy regardless of cue focality. However, only under the most challenging condition (i.e., nonfocal-syllable) did participants who reported using a strategy exhibit better PM performance compared to those who did not use a strategy. Additionally, strategy use and cue focality were independently associated with greater costs to ongoing task performance: strategy users exhibited greater slowing relative to individuals who did not use a strategy, and the extent of slowing was greater as the task difficulty increased across cue focality. Finally, perceived task importance appeared to play an important role in the interactive link between cue focality and strategy use on PM performance for the more challenging, nonfocal PM tasks. Specifically, moderation analyses suggested that greater perceived task importance alone may improve the likelihood of PM success for moderately challenging PM tasks (i.e., nonfocal-category), but for the most challenging PM tasks (i.e., nonfocal-syllable), individuals' strategy use was still associated with better PM performance. The present study expands our understanding of metacognition's role in PM performance and has implications for everyday PM performance.

Racial differences in links between perceived discrimination, depressive symptoms, and ambulatory working memory.

OBJECTIVES: Perceived discrimination is associated with racial cognitive health disparities. Links between discrimination and cognitive performance, like working memory, in everyday settings (i.e. ambulatory performance) require investigation. Depressive symptoms may be a mechanism through which discrimination relates to ambulatory working memory. METHOD: Discrimination, retrospective and momentary depressive symptoms/mood, and aggregated and momentary working memory performance among older Black and White adults were examined within the Einstein Aging Study. RESULTS: Racially stratified analyses revealed that discrimination did not relate to Black or White adults' ambulatory working memory. Among Black adults, however, more frequent discrimination was associated with greater retrospectively reported depressive symptoms, which related to more working memory errors across two weeks (indirect effect p < 0.05). This path was not significant among White adults. Links between discrimination and momentary working memory were not explained by momentary reports of depressed mood for Black or White adults. CONCLUSION: Depressive symptoms may play an important role in the link between discrimination and ambulatory working memory among Black adults across extended measurements, but not at the momentary level. Future research should address ambulatory cognition and momentary reports of discrimination and depression to better understand how to minimize cognitive health disparities associated with discrimination.

Loneliness dynamics and physical health symptomology among midlife adults in daily life.

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined how average daily loneliness (between-persons [BPs]), intraindividual variability in loneliness across days (within-persons [WPs]), and loneliness stability informed physical health symptomatology. METHOD: We utilized daily diary data from a national sample of 1,538 middle-aged adults (Mage = 51.02; 57.61% women) who completed eight end-of-day telephone interviews about daily experiences, including loneliness and physical health symptoms (e.g., headaches, nausea). Via multilevel modeling, we examined average daily loneliness (BPs), intraindividual variability in loneliness (WPs), stability in loneliness (individual mean-squared successive difference) in association with the number and average severity of daily physical health symptoms. RESULTS: When participants were less lonely on average, and on days when loneliness was lower than a person's average, they had fewer and less severe physical health symptoms. Additionally, participants who were more stable in loneliness across 8 days had less severe physical health symptoms. Further, there was a stronger association between instability in loneliness and more physical health symptoms for people who were lonelier on average. Finally, the increase in physical health symptom severity associated with WP loneliness was strongest for participants with low variability in loneliness. CONCLUSION: Loneliness is associated with physical health symptoms on a day-to-day basis, especially for people who are highly variable in loneliness. Considerations of multiple sources of variation in daily loneliness may be necessary to adequately address loneliness and promote health. Public health interventions addressing loneliness may be most effective if they support social connectedness in people's everyday lives in ways that promote stable, low levels of loneliness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Older adults' self-reported prospective memory lapses in everyday life: Connections to inflammation and gender.

OBJECTIVE: Limited research has focused on the association between inflammatory markers and features of subjective cognitive functioning among older adults. The present work examined links between inflammation and a specific subjective cognitive report: prospective memory (PM), or our memory for future intentions, such as attending an appointment or taking medication. METHOD: We assessed self-reported PM lapses using a two-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA) diary protocol via smartphone as well as levels of blood-based inflammation among 231 dementia-free older adults (70-90 years, 66% women) enrolled in the Einstein Aging Study. RESULTS: Overall, PM lapses were largely unrelated to inflammatory markers. However, a significant gender difference was observed in the link between basal levels of interleukin (IL)-8 and PM lapses: higher levels of basal IL-8 were associated with more PM lapses among men (estimate = 0.98, 95%CI: [0.43, 1.53], p < .001) but not women (estimate = -0.03, 95%CI: [-0.45, 0.39], p = .826). No other significant relationships between PM lapses and basal or stimulated (ex vivo) cytokine levels (IL-1ß, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF-α]) or C-reactive protein (CRP) emerged. CONCLUSION: Elevated levels of IL-8 in older men may possibly be an early indicator of neurodegeneration that relates to PM performance. Future studies should continue to examine PM and inflammation across genders to identify possible mechanisms through which these constructs may indicate neurodegeneration and dementia risk.

Caregiving During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Factors Associated With Feelings of Caregiver Preparedness.

Examination of caregiver preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic can inform efforts to support caregivers in future times of global crisis. Informal caregivers of adults with dementia or severe disabilities (n = 72, Mage = 62.82 years, 90.28% female) were recruited through Adult Day Centers across the United States. Caregivers responding to an online survey regarding their experiences and preparedness reported an increase in burden, stress, and time spent caregiving since the onset of the pandemic. Caregivers reported feeling prepared for typical caregiving responsibilities but felt less prepared for someone else to assume the role of primary caregiver. Multiple regression modeling indicated that resilience accounted for significant variance in primary caregiver preparedness, over and above burden, but only caregiver age accounted for significant variability in a component representing feeling prepared to delegate caregiving to another person. These findings have implications for research and applied efforts to promote caregiver well-being and preparedness.

Factors contributing to honor-endorsing men's suicide capability: Firearm ownership, practical capability, and exposure to painful and provocative events.

OBJECTIVE: White men in U.S. cultures of honor die by suicide at greater rates than other demographic groups. This finding has been attributed to factors such as the prevalence and use of firearms in men's suicide in honor states, as well as motivational risk factors (e.g., thwarted belongingness). Other features of honor cultures (e.g., physical aggression, risk-taking behaviors) suggest that honor-endorsing men may frequently experience painful and provocative events (PPEs), which, in turn, may facilitate practical capability for suicide. The present work tested this hypothesis and honor ideology's relationship to firearm ownership and storage practices. METHOD: In two samples of mostly White U.S. men-one undergraduate sample (N = 472, Mage  = 19.76) and one middle- to older adult sample (N = 419, Mage  = 65.17)-we assessed honor ideology endorsement, PPEs, practical capability for suicide, and firearm-related outcomes. RESULTS: Honor endorsement was greater among firearm owners (particularly self-protective owners), but it was unrelated to storage practices. Honor endorsement was positively associated with PPEs and practical capability. Additionally, the relationship between honor ideology and practical capability was indirectly explained by PPE exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Results highlight multiple avenues-PPEs, practical capability for suicide, (self-protective) firearm ownership-by which masculine honor norms may place men at risk for suicide.

How did I remember to do that? Self-reported strategy use for laboratory prospective memory tasks.

The role of metacognition in prospective memory (PM) has received relatively little attention. This study combined data from several experiments to identify the strategy repertoire employed during a classic laboratory PM task and to determine whether self-reported strategy was related to performance. Participants (N = 668) completed either a focal or nonfocal PM task embedded in an ongoing lexical decision task. The results indicated that participants reported the same strategy repertoire regardless of PM task focality. Participants who reported using a strategy performed better than those who did not report using one, and this was especially true under nonfocal conditions. Self-reported strategy use was also associated with more cost to the ongoing task when the opportunity to complete the PM task was present. These findings add to what is known about the metacognitive components of PM and underscore the need for additional research in this area.