The Impact of Digital Coaching Intervention for Improving Healthy Ageing Dimensions among Older Adults during Their Transition from Work to Retirement.

Retirement is a critical step in older adults' lives, so it is important to motivate them to stay physically active, mentally healthy, and socially connected in the transition from work to retirement, including through digital health coaching programs. This study aims to: evaluate the impact of a digital coaching intervention to enhance three healthy ageing dimensions, i.e., physical activity, mental well-being, and socialization of a group of adults near retirement; understand the users' experience; and identify the system strengths and weaknesses. This longitudinal mixed-methods study, carried out in 2021 in Italy and the Netherlands, enrolled 62 individuals. In the first 5 weeks of the trial, participants used a digital coach with the support of human coaches, and then they continued autonomously for another 5 weeks. The use of the digital coach improved the participants' physical activity, mental well-being and self-efficacy during the first period and only the physical activity in the second. An effective coaching system should be flexible and attractive. High levels of personalization remain the golden key to aligning the health program to the physical, cognitive and social status of the intended target, thus increasing the user-system interaction, usability, and acceptability, as well as enhancing adherence to the intervention.

Social status and prenatal testosterone exposure assessed via second-to-fourth digit ratio affect 6-9-year-old children's prosocial choices.

Prosocial behaviour (i.e., voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another) seems to be fully developed in children by the age of 6 years. However, questions about which factors modify prosocial behaviour at that age remain understudied. Here we used a resource allocation paradigm to test prosocial behaviour in 6-9-year-old school children. They could decide between a "selfish" (i.e., one sticker for themselves) and a "prosocial" option (i.e., one sticker for themselves and one for the receiver) and we tested whether friendship, social status and prenatal androgen exposure (approximated by the 2nd to 4th digit ratio; 2D:4D) influenced children's prosocial choices. We found that children behaved prosocially, and that their prosocial tendencies were negatively correlated with prenatal androgen exposure; i.e., children with high 2D:4D ratios (reflecting low prenatal androgen exposure) acted more prosocially than children with low 2D:4D ratios. Further, their social status in the classroom influenced their choices: children with fewer interaction partners chose the "prosocial" option more often than more 'popular' children. However, they did so irrespectively of whether they were paired with a recipient or not. Our results highlight the importance of considering social, as well as physiological factors when investigating prosocial behaviour in children.