Routineness of Social Interactions Is Associated With Higher Affective Well-Being in Older Adults.

OBJECTIVES: Some research conceptualizes routineness of daily life as an indicator of cognitive vulnerability that would lead to lower well-being in older age, whereas other research expects routineness to give rise to more meaning and stability in life and thus to higher well-being. Further research is needed to understand routineness in older adults in relation to cognitive abilities and well-being. This study examined routineness of social interactions. METHODS: We examined data from an event-contingent experience sampling study with 103 Swiss community-dwelling older adults (aged 65 to 84 years). Participants completed in-lab cognitive assessments (reasoning, episodic memory, speed, and vocabulary) and reported their well-being (positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction). For more than 21 days, participants reported the time and context of their social interactions (including modality, partner type, and location). Routineness of social interactions was defined as social interactions that occurred at the same time of day over the study period. It was calculated using recurrence quantification analysis. RESULTS: Linear regressions showed that higher routineness of social interaction in general, of social interaction through the same modality, and of social interaction with the same partner type were associated with higher positive affect. Higher routineness of social interaction in general was associated with lower negative affect. Routineness of social interactions was not associated with life satisfaction or cognitive abilities. DISCUSSION: A routine social life may increase older adults' affective well-being. Results are discussed in the context of activity engagement and time use in older age.

The role of social interaction modality for well-being in older adults.

It is well-established that more frequent social interaction is associated with higher well-being across the lifespan. The present study examines the role of frequency of interactions via different modalities on older adults' weekly well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, where people had to adapt their communication behavior and reduce in-person contact due to precautionary measures. We use data from 98 participants (age: M = 71, SD = 5), who documented their weekly frequency of communication via four interaction modalities as well as their loneliness, positive affect, and negative affect over up to 64 weeks. Results show that participants with overall higher frequency of face-to-face, telephone, and text-based interaction than others report higher levels of positive affect and lower levels of negative affect and loneliness than others. Participants report higher levels of well-being during weeks when they report more frequent face-to-face, telephone, and text-based interaction than their individual average. Unexpectedly, participants report higher levels of negative affect during weeks with more video call interaction. Some effects of social interaction frequency on affect and loneliness are higher for face-to-face interactions versus other modalities. In addition, interaction effects at within-person level indicate that the effects of weekly telephone and text-based interaction frequency on loneliness are stronger in weeks with relatively few face-to-face interactions. Taken together, our findings suggest that social interactions via different modalities contribute to well-being, but that face-to-face interactions have the biggest effect. In addition, there is some evidence that telephone and text-based interaction may play a compensatory role. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Project VITAL at Home: Impact of Technology on Loneliness and Well-Being of Family Caregivers of People with Dementia.

OBJECTIVES: Project VITAL At Home aimed to combat social isolation and loneliness in family caregivers of people with dementia through purposeful engagement and connection. This project examined the effects of technology on caregiver loneliness and well-being, as well as their technology experiences, during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Family caregivers were provided iN2L tablets and access to Alzheimer's Association supportive programs. Caregivers (n = 124) completed online surveys at pre and post evaluation points (average 7 months apart) to assess loneliness, subjective well-being (affect), supportive program usage, and tablet experiences. RESULTS: Family caregivers had positive perceptions of the tablets for both themselves and their family members. Tablets had positive effects on caregiver well-being, including giving them an additional caregiver tool, alleviating stress, increasing satisfaction with quiet time, and improving access to supportive programs. Caregiver positive affect decreased, but no changes were observed for negative affect or loneliness. CONCLUSIONS: Family caregivers found value in the tablets and showed improvements in some aspects of well-being. Randomized trials are needed to more fully assess the benefits of the intervention. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Pairing tablets with caregiving supports is a promising intervention to improve caregivers' access to vital resources and services and to improve their well-being.

The Role of Relationship Conflict for Momentary Loneliness and Affect in the Daily Lives of Older Couples.

Background: Intimate partner relationships foster individuals' well-being throughout the lifespan. However, dissatisfying or conflict-laden relationships can have a detrimental impact on well-being and relationship quality. The majority of older adults live together with a spouse/partner, and intimate relationships are one of the most important social contexts in their daily lives. Purpose: Expanding on previous research, we examined the role of previous conflict on experiences of loneliness and affect in the daily lives of older partners from a dyadic perspective. Relationship duration and quality, personality traits (neuroticism and extraversion), conflict frequency during the measurement period, physical health as well as age were considered as moderators. Study Sample and Data Analysis: We used data from an experience sampling study with 151 older heterosexual couples (302 participants; 65+ years old) reporting on their positive and negative affect, loneliness, and previous experience of relationship conflict 6 times a day for 14 days. Data were analyzed using dyadic multilevel models. Results: For both men and women within couples, previous conflict was associated with an increased experience of negative affect and loneliness and a decreased experience of positive affect. Higher neuroticism predicted less positive and more negative affect following conflict for women and more loneliness for men. Higher relationship satisfaction predicted less increase in negative affect after conflict for female partners. Age, relationship duration, physical health, extraversion, and the number of conflict episodes showed no moderating effects. Conclusions: Our results support the notion that relationship conflict deteriorates emotional well-being in old age and renders older adults lonelier even in the context of intimate partner relationships.

The relevance of perceived work environment and work activities for personality trajectories in midlife.

OBJECTIVES: Work is an important developmental context in adulthood, yet little is known about how it contributes to personality trajectories in midlife. The present study examines how subjectively perceived work environment (autonomy, innovation, social integration, stress) and objectively measured work activities (activities related to information and people, physical/manual activities) are related to levels of Big Five personality traits at age 44 and to change over 20 years. METHODS: We analyzed four-wave longitudinal data from N = 374 participants (born 1950-1952; Mage T1 = 44 years, SD = 1; 44% women) from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adult Development and Aging (ILSE) within the structural equation modeling framework. RESULTS: At baseline, subjective perceptions of work environments showed a higher number of significant associations with personality than objective work activities. Over time, small declines in neuroticism and extraversion and small increases in agreeableness and conscientiousness were observed, which were largely independent of work characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show slight changes in most Big Five traits from age 44 to 64, which were mostly unrelated to work characteristics. More research is needed to uncover the sources and dynamics of personality trait change in midlife and the role of work for personality trajectories.

Alternating time spent on social interactions and solitude in healthy older adults.

Time spent on being with others (social interactions) and being alone (solitude) in day to day life might reflect older adults' agentic regulatory strategies to balance the needs to belong and to conserve energy. Motivated from a joint lifespan psychological and social relationship theoretical perspective, this study examined how time spent on social interactions and solitude alternatively unfolds within individuals in daily life, relating to individual differences in trait-level well-being and fatigue. Over 21 days, a total of 11,172 valid records of social interactions were collected from 118 older adults (aged 65-94 years) in a smartphone-based event-contingent ambulatory assessment study in Switzerland. On average, a social interaction episode lasted 39 min and a solitude episode lasted 5.03 hr. Multilevel models showed that, at the within-person level, a longer-than-usual social interaction preceded and was followed by a longer-than-usual solitude episode. Moderator analyses showed that older adults with higher trait life satisfaction and lower trait fatigue spent even more time in social interactions after longer solitude episodes, amplifying the solitude-then-interaction association. Our findings suggest that whereas social interaction is a means to improve well-being, solitude is also an integral part in older adults' daily life supporting energy recovery.

Training working memory for two years-No evidence of transfer to intelligence.

Working memory (WM) training has been proposed as a promising intervention to enhance cognitive abilities, but convincing evidence for transfer to untrained abilities is lacking. Prevalent limitations of WM training studies include the narrow assessment of both WM and cognitive abilities, the analysis of manifest variables subject to measurement error, and training dosages too low to likely cause changes in the cognitive system. To address these limitations, we conducted a 2-year longitudinal study to investigate the effects of working memory training on latent factors of working memory capacity, fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. One hundred twelve students initially attending 9th grade practiced a heterogenous set of validated WM tasks on a biweekly basis. A control group of 113 students initially attending 9th grade participated in the pretest and posttest. Broad and prototypical measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence served as measures of nearer and farer transfer. We found substantial and reliable training effects on the practiced WM tasks, as well as on a latent WM factor constituted by them. However, no transfer of training effects to fluid or crystallized intelligence were observed. These results add to the literature questioning the utility and validity of WM training as means of improving cognitive abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Not "The More The Merrier": Diminishing Returns to Daily Face-To-Face Social Interaction Frequency for Well-Being in Older Age.

OBJECTIVES: While being socially active is beneficial for well-being in older age, it is unclear whether effects of social interactions on well-being indicate "the more the merrier" or if they have limits as individuals socialize more or less across different days. This study addressed diminishing returns to social interaction frequency for well-being. METHOD: We examined data from an event-contingent experience sampling study from 116 Swiss older adults (65 to 94 years old) over 21 days. Participants reported face-to-face social interactions once they occurred and daily well-being (i.e., positive and negative affect, loneliness) in the evenings. RESULTS: On average, participants had 2.09 face-to-face social interactions per day. Linear and quadratic effects from multilevel models conjointly indicated that a higher number of daily social interactions was associated with higher daily positive affect and lower daily negative affect and loneliness, but that well-being reached its peak at 2-3 times above participants' typical daily interaction frequency. Once these numbers were surpassed, the benefit of additional social interactions diminished. Additionally, participants who typically had fewer social interactions, were unmarried, lived alone, and had more health conditions showed stronger associations between daily social interaction frequency and well-being. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest the benefits of social interactions on well-being exhibit diminishing returns. Social interactions may play a bigger role in older adults with less satiation for desire to belong and a limited future time perspective. We discuss these findings in terms of the belongingness hypothesis and the socioemotional selectivity theory.

Structural and Functional Aspects of Social Relationships and Episodic Memory: Between-Person and Within-Person Associations in Middle-Aged and Older Adults.

OBJECTIVES: A growing body of research has documented associations between social relationships and cognitive function, while findings are less clear regarding specific aspects of social relationships that are relevant to change in cognitive function. Furthermore, it is unclear whether associations differ at the between-person and within-person levels. METHOD: The present study used 8-year longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the role of structural (partnered/married, number of social network partners, and contact frequency) as well as functional (support, strain, and loneliness) aspects of social relationships for episodic memory at the between-person and within-person levels. Analyses are based on up to 3 waves of data from 19,297 participants (mean age at baseline = 66 years, SD = 10, range = 50-104; 58% women). Control variables include age at baseline, gender, education, functional health, and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Findings showed that at the between-person level, most structural and functional aspects were related to levels of memory performance, with participants with higher numbers of social network members, more frequent contact, and more positive experiences outperforming others. An exception was a higher number of family (child or relative) relationships. At the within-person level, on occasions where participants had a higher number of close family relationships than usual, had more social contact than usual, and felt less lonely than usual, they also showed higher than usual episodic memory performance. Finally, negative effects of social strain and loneliness on episodic memory performance at the between-person level were moderated by social network size, indicating that effects were more negative among individuals with larger social networks. DISCUSSION: Both structural and functional aspects of social relationships contribute to between-person differences in levels and fluctuations of episodic memory performance. Ups and downs of relationships to relatives, social contact, and feelings of loneliness contribute to ups and downs of episodic memory. Potential mechanisms underlying these associations are discussed.

Change in Episodic Memory With Spousal Loss: The Role of Social Relationships.

OBJECTIVES: The spousal relationship is one of the most important social contexts in old age, and the loss of a spouse/partner is associated with stress and cognitive decline. In the present study, we examined whether social relationships can buffer potential negative effects of spousal loss on cognition. We examined the role of social network, social activities, and perceived deficiencies in social relationships (loneliness). METHOD: We used longitudinal data between 1998 and 2012 from 2,074 participants of the Health and Retirement Study, who had experienced spousal loss during the study period. Multilevel modeling was used to examine how time-varying indicators of social network, social activities, and loneliness were related to age-related trajectories of episodic memory prior to and after spousal loss. Analyses controlled for gender, race/ethnicity, education, time-varying functional health, and being repartnered/remarried. RESULTS: Having children living within 10 miles and providing help to others buffered negative effects of widowhood on episodic memory. In addition, within-person increase in providing help to others buffered against decline in episodic memory after spousal loss. Having friends in the neighborhood, more frequent social visits, providing help to others, volunteering, and lack of loneliness were related to higher episodic memory, while having relatives in the neighborhood was related to lower episodic memory. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that social networks, social activities, and loneliness are related to levels of cognitive function at the time of spousal loss and that social relationships can buffer negative effects of spousal loss on cognitive function. Implications for future research are discussed.

Affect contagion in daily life is mediated by perceptions of partner affect: An experience-sampling study with older couples.

Intimate relationship partners dynamically covary in their affective states. One mechanism through which intimate relationship partners experience and shape each other's affective states is affect contagion, that is, the spread of affective states from one person to another. Most studies on affect contagion in daily life focused on younger couples. Also, the degree to which social-cognitive processes are involved in everyday affect contagion remains unclear. Intimate relationships are one of the most important social contexts in older adults' daily lives. Expanding on previous research, we focused on affect contagion in older couples, and examined whether processes of affect contagion were mediated by perceptions of partner affect, that is, how individuals thought their partners felt at previous moments. We used data from an experience sampling study with 152 older heterosexual couples (304 participants; 65 + years old) who reported on their positive and negative affect, perceptions of their partner's positive and negative affect, and presence or absence of partners 6 times a day for 14 days. Dyadic multilevel mediation models were used to evaluate our hypotheses. We observed consistent evidence that processes of positive affect contagion between partners were mediated by perceptions of partner's affective states. Negative affect contagion was directed from men to women, but not vice versa, and mediated by perceptions of partner's affective states. Partner presence was unrelated to processes of affect contagion. Our findings support the notion that (perceptions of) close others' emotions shape our own feelings and identify partner perceptions as a mechanism of affect contagion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Life Satisfaction during the Transition to Widowhood among Japanese Older Adults.

INTRODUCTION: The loss of a spouse is among the most stressful life events. Whilst grief and mourning vary across cultures, most longitudinal studies have been conducted in Western societies. Adding to prior research, this study examines the role of resources available prior to spousal bereavement and changes therein for trajectories of well-being in an Eastern society, namely, Japan. METHODS: Data were derived from a nationally representative panel survey of Japanese older adults aged 60 years and above. We used data from married participants at baseline who experienced spousal loss during the 19-year follow-up period (N = 481). Well-being was indexed as life satisfaction. RESULTS: The multiphase growth model revealed that life satisfaction typically deteriorated surrounding spousal loss and remained stable 1 year after the event. Compared with individuals coresiding with a child before and after loss, those who did not continuously coreside with a child showed lower levels of postloss life satisfaction, but better recovery. Perceiving better financial status prior to loss was related to higher levels of preloss life satisfaction and, conversely, lower levels after loss. Changes in resources were not associated with life satisfaction following widowhood. DISCUSSION: Our results show that spousal bereavement has, on average, an initial negative impact on well-being with substantial individual differences in recovery 1 year later. When designing interventions to promote adaptation after spousal loss, it is important to consider the bereaved individual's cultural background and preloss resources.

Co-development of Couples' Life Satisfaction in Transition to Retirement: A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective.

OBJECTIVES: Retirement is one of the major life course transitions in old age. Evidence suggests that exiting work life is associated with notable changes in life satisfaction, which are heterogeneous across individuals. Effects of retirement transitions on life satisfaction have been understudied in couples. We examined change in life satisfaction with retirement for retirees and their spouses/partners, the extent to which change in life satisfaction was heterogeneous and correlated within couples, and associations with health status and social participation. METHOD: We used data from the German Socioeconomic Panel obtained in the years 1984 to 2016 (n = 2,117 couples; 74% male retirees; age at retirement: M = 61 years, SD = 3 years, range = 55 to 70 years; 98% married or in a registered relationship). We examined health and social participation of retirees and their partners as predictor variables and controlled for age, gender, education, partner employment, household income, and region in Germany (former East vs West). Data were analyzed with dyadic multilevel two-phase growth curve models. RESULTS: On average, both retirees and partners reported increasing life satisfaction at retirement. Change in life satisfaction was heterogeneous across individuals and highly correlated within couples. Health and social participation were associated with levels of, but not with change in life satisfaction with retirement in retirees and partners. DISCUSSION: Retirement is not a uniform period of transition, but is shaped by the multidimensional context in which life unfolds. Moreover, life satisfaction can be shaped in response to life transitions experienced by close others.

Well-Being and Loneliness in Swiss Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Social Relationships.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and social distancing measures are an extreme stressor that might result in negative emotional experiences and feelings of loneliness. However, it is possible that social relationships might have a protective effect. In the present study, we examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected older adults' well-being and loneliness, and the role of structural and functional characteristics of social relationships. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We use data from 99 older adults in Switzerland who participated (a) in a 3-week microlongitudinal study on social relationships and well-being in 2019 and (b) in a weekly online survey during 4 weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown. RESULTS: Our findings show that the global pandemic had substantial adverse effects on older adults' emotional well-being and loneliness. In addition, aspects of social relationships were related to loneliness both before and during the pandemic. Only one functional feature of social relationships (satisfaction with communication during the pandemic) buffered adverse effects of the major stressful event. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Although the social distancing measures during COVID-19 presented a major stressor for older adults' well-being and loneliness, being able to maintain social communication to a satisfactory level during that time reduced this effect. Therefore, enabling older adults to stay in touch with their social circle based on their personal preferences might reduce the impact that any future lockdown might have on their well-being.

Internet Adoption in Older Adults: Findings from the Health and Retirement Study.

Being able to use the Internet is becoming increasingly important in today's digitized society. Evidence suggests that older adults are at risk of being left behind by technological developments. We examined Internet adoption in older adults in relation to sociodemographic, health, cognitive, social, and personality factors. We used data from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 5,949; 61 percent women; age: M = 72 years, standard deviation [SD] = 7; range = 50-105). Internet use was examined over an 8-year period. Predictors were assessed at baseline. We used a Cox proportional hazards model to examine how predictors were related to Internet adoption during the study period. Overall, 1,296 out of 5,949 participants (22 percent) reported starting to use the Internet during the study period. Our findings revealed that younger age, higher education, higher income, living with a partner, and better cognitive performance were associated with a higher likelihood of Internet adoption, whereas being Black was associated with a lower likelihood. Openness was associated with a higher likelihood of Internet adoption over the study period. Our findings add to the literature on the role of sociodemographic, cognitive, and health factors in older adults' Internet use. In addition, we show that personality also predicts older adults' Internet use.

The role of perceived work environment and work activities in midlife cognitive change.

Previous research documented positive associations between cognitively stimulating work and levels of cognitive performance, while longitudinal associations are less clear. We used 20-year longitudinal data from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adult Development and Aging (ILSE) to examine the role of perceived work environment (autonomy, innovation, social integration, and stress) and work activities derived from an occupational database (related to information, to people, and manual activities) for trajectories of cognitive abilities (processing speed, fluid and crystallized intelligence). We used data from 374 participants in the ILSE midlife cohort (born 1950-52) who were working at baseline and had valid observations on work characteristics and control variables including education, gender, region (former East vs. West Germany), and personal income (mean age at baseline = 44 years, SD = 1, 44% women). Cognitively stimulating perceived work environments (higher levels of autonomy and innovation), higher levels of work activities related to information and people, and lower levels of manual activity at baseline were related to higher initial levels of cognitive ability. Higher work stress was related to higher baseline fluid ability. These associations were largely not independent of control variables. Higher social integration at work was related to less steep increase in crystallized intelligence and higher work stress was related to less decline in processing speed. In sum, our findings were more in line with selection rather than with enrichment effects, with the caveat that our findings rely on work variables taken at baseline. We discuss potential mechanisms underlying these findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Digitalization and the Social Lives of Older Adults: Protocol for a Microlongitudinal Study.

BACKGROUND: Digital technologies are increasingly pervading our daily lives. Although older adults started using digital technologies later than other age groups, they are increasingly adopting these technologies, especially with the goal of communicating with others. However, less is known about how online social activities are embedded in older adults' daily lives, how they complement other (offline) social activities, and how they contribute to social connectedness and well-being. OBJECTIVE: Data generated by this project will allow us to understand how older adults use digital communication in their daily lives to communicate with others, how this relates to well-being and social connectedness, and how communication using digital technologies differs from other types of communication depending on situational and individual characteristics. METHODS: Microlongitudinal data were collected from 120 older adults from German-speaking regions of Switzerland to examine these questions. Data collection took place from April 2019 to October 2019. Data collection took place over different time scales, including event-based (reporting all social interactions for 21 days), daily (well-being, loneliness, and technology use every evening for 21 days), hourly (cortisol assessments 6 times per day for 3 days), and baseline (relevant interindividual characteristics, including sociodemographics, health, technology use, personality, and cognitive performance) assessments. RESULTS: Data collection for this study was completed in November 2019. Participants reported an average of 96.35 interactions across the 21 days. Among the total 11,453 interactions, 5494 (47.97%) were face-to-face, and around 16% each were interactions by phone (1858, 16.16%), email (1858, 16.22%), and text message (1853, 16.18%). Otherwise, 246 (2.15%) of the interactions took place on social media, 96 (0.84)% were letters, and 54 (0.47%) of the interactions took place on videochat. CONCLUSIONS: Participants used a variety of modalities in their daily communication, including digital means such as text messages, email, and video calls. Further analysis will provide more detail as to the role that communication via digital media plays in older adults' daily lives. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR1-10.2196/20306.

Adult development and aging in historical context.

Human functioning and development are shaped by sociocultural contexts and by the historical changes that occur in these contexts. Over the last century, sociocultural changes such as increases in early life education have profoundly reshaped normative developmental sequences. In this article, we first briefly review how history-graded changes have influenced levels of objective performance and subjective evaluations among older adults and conclude that old age in countries such as the United States and Germany is getting younger, both on behavioral measures and in people's own perception. Second, we put these findings in a larger perspective and note some of the "presumed" causes driving historical change. Third, we identify key aspects of change that need to be further described, including history-graded change in (a) the formative role of experiences made across adulthood; (b) within-person trajectories of adult development and aging, including rates of change, patterns of variation, and causal influence; (c) the structure of very old age and the end of life; and (d) what may be expected in the forthcoming decades. We suggest a number of reasons why the rosy picture of historical change obtained for older adults over the last century may not necessarily continue in the future. In a final step, we outline promising methods that might be used to discover and test mechanisms driving history-graded changes, and to inform projection and optimization of functioning and development in future generations of older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Rethinking social relationships in old age: Digitalization and the social lives of older adults.

Interactions with technology have been shaping human society since its beginning. Recently, digitalization has pervaded all aspects of our lives and provided us with new ways to communicate with our social contacts and develop new social ties. We address how these changes shape the social lives of older adults today. Several factors may give rise to concerns that older adults today are at risk for social isolation, including demographic trends toward smaller families, or reduction of previous activities due to health limitations. At the same time, older adults today have access to new technologies that may enable them to overcome geographical distance and mobility barriers. First, based on models of technology adoption, we review research on digital technology use by older adults. Although older adults use technology at lower rates than other age groups, rates of (social) Internet use are increasing. However, sociodemographic disparities exist in access to technology. Second, we focus on 3 key questions and methodological directions for future research: (a) Does (social) Internet use contribute to more positive social experiences and well-being in old age? (b) What are future methodological directions in the study of social technology use in older adults? (c) Do digital technologies reshape the social experience in old age or do they reinforce existing preferences and behaviors? Addressing these questions will allow us to understand the effects of technology on older adults' daily lives and how this in turn affects multiple domains of functioning (e.g., well-being, cognitive function, physical health) in future generations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).