Search

Lifespan psychological and life course sociological perspectives have long acknowledged that individual functioning is shaped by historical and socio-cultural contexts. Secular increases favoring later-born cohorts are widely documented for fluid cognitive performance and well-being (among older adults). However, little is known about secular trends in other key resources of psychosocial function such as perceptions of control and whether historical changes have occurred in young, middle-aged, and older adults alike. To examine these questions, we compared data from two independent national samples of the Midlife in the United States survey obtained 18 years apart (1995/96 vs. 2013/14) and identified case-matched cohorts (per cohort, n = 2,141, aged = 23–75 years) based on age, gender, cohort-normed education, marital status, religiosity, and two central markers of physical health, multimorbidity and functional limitations. We additionally examine the role of economic resources for cohort differences in perceived mastery and constraints. Results revealed that older adults nowadays report perceiving fewer constraints than did matched controls 18 years ago, with such positive secular trends being particularly pronounced among women and people suffering from multiple diseases (in high income population strata). In contrast, younger adults reported perceiving more constraints nowadays than those 18 years ago and also reported perceiving lower mastery nowadays, effects that were particularly strong among the less-educated. We conclude from our national US sample that secular trends generalize to central psychosocial resources across adulthood such as perceptions of control, but are not unanimously positive. We discuss possible underlying mechanisms and practical implications.

There has been an increase in research on the relationship between holidays and wellbeing in the last decade. However, only a few studies have investigated this association in seniors and the impact of holiday-related predictors of wellbeing is understudied. The aims of this study were to: 1) compare the profile of senior tourists and senior non-tourists on socio-demographic indicators, health, physical activity, and social relations, 2) compare the profile of senior tourists and senior non-tourists on wellbeing, after adjusting for control variables, and 3) examine the impact of holiday-related predictors (frequency, mean duration, frequency of physical, social, cognitive and relaxing activities, degree of perceived health benefits) on wellbeing of senior tourists, over and above the role of various relevant covariates. A sample of 4130 seniors (Mage = 68.2 years, SD = 5.8, range 60–85) filled out a questionnaire related to the last holiday, daily activities, health, and wellbeing. Results showed that senior tourists were younger, more educated, wealthier, and healthier than senior non-tourists. In addition, the levels of wellbeing were higher in senior tourists compared to senior non-tourists, after adjusting for control variables. Hierarchical regressions analyses revealed that frequent holidays, a greater frequency of social and cognitive activities, as well as the degree of perceived health benefits were associated with higher wellbeing., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Frailty is a core concept in understanding vulnerability and adjustment to stress in older adults. Adopting the perspective provided by the transactional model of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman in Stress, appraisal, and coping, Springer, New York, 1984), the present study examined three aspects of frailty in older adults: (1) the link between frailty and perceived stress exposure (PSE); (2) the link between frailty and stress-related symptoms (SRS); and (3) the role of frailty in the link between PSE and SRS. Participants were 2711 adults aged between 64 and 101 years who were taking part in the Swiss Vivre/Leben/Vivere study. As well as assessing frailty, we measured PSE and SRS during the 4 weeks preceding the administration of the questionnaires, together with the covariates age, sex, educational attainment, language of the canton, and type of canton (urban vs. rural). Regression analyses revealed higher levels of PSE in frail older adults than in non-frail older adults. In addition, frail older adults reported more SRS than non-frail older adults. As expected, the association between PSE and SRS differed as a function of the frailty status: The positive relation between PSE and SRS being stronger for frail older adults than for non-frail older adults. These results suggest that frailty is related to perceived discrepancy between resources and demands, and to ability to cope with PSE. Our findings have implications for interventions to help frail older adults manage stress.

Previous findings and the depressive-executive dysfunction hypothesis suggest that the established association between executive functioning and depression is accounted for by repetitive thinking. Investigating the association between executive functioning, repetitive thinking, and depressive mood, the present study empirically tested this mediational model in a sample of older adults, while focusing on both concrete and abstract repetitive thinking. This latter distinction is important given the potential protective role of concrete repetitive thinking, in contrast to the depletive effect of abstract repetitive thinking.A sample of 43 elderly volunteers, between 75 and 95 years of age, completed tests of executive functioning (the Stroop test, the Trail Making test, and the Fluency test), and questionnaires of repetitive thinking and depression.Positive correlations were observed between abstract repetitive thinking and depressive mood, and between concrete repetitive thinking and executive functioning; a negative correlation was observed between depressive mood and executive functioning. Further, mediational analysis evidenced that the relation between executive functioning and depressive mood was mediated by abstract repetitive thinking.The present data provide, for the first time, empirical support to the depressive-executive dysfunction hypothesis: the lack of executive resources would favor a mode of abstract repetitive thinking, which in turn would deplete mood. It suggests that clinical intervention targeting depression in the elderly should take into consideration repetitive thinking modes and the executive resources needed to disengage from rumination.

Little is known about subjective assessments of memory abilities and decline among middle-aged adults or their association with objective memory performance in the general population. In this study we examined self-ratings of memory ability and change in relation to episodic memory performance in two national samples of middle-aged and older adults from the Midlife in the United States study (MIDUS II in 2005-06) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; every two years from 2002 to 2012). MIDUS (Study 1) participants (N=3,581) rated their memory compared to others their age and to themselves five years ago; HRS (Study 2) participants (N=14,821) rated their current memory and their memory compared to two years ago, with up to six occasions of longitudinal data over ten years. In both studies, episodic memory performance was the total number of words recalled in immediate and delayed conditions. When controlling for demographic and health correlates, self-ratings of memory abilities, but not subjective change, were related to performance. We examined accuracy by comparing subjective and objective memory ability and change. More than one third of the participants across the studies had self-assessments that were inaccurate relative to their actual level of performance and change, and accuracy differed as a function of demographic and health factors. Further understanding of self-awareness of memory abilities and change beginning in midlife may be useful for identifying early warning signs of decline, with implications regarding policies and practice for early detection and treatment of cognitive impairment.

This study investigated the relationship between childhood misfortune and 10-year change in health and whether this relationship was mediated by the quality of social relations. We used data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) national longitudinal study, 1995-1996 (Time 1) and 2005-2006 (Time 2). Childhood misfortune was measured at Time 1 using indicators of financial strain, family structure, and abuse. Self-rated physical and mental health indicators were obtained at both occasions. The measure of quality of social relations was based on items relative to social support and social strain from spouse, friends, and family at Time 1. Mediational models showed that a higher level of childhood misfortune was associated with low-quality family relations which in turn tend to account for change in mental health. These findings suggest that childhood misfortune is associated with the quality of social relations, which in turn explain individual changes in mental health in adulthood.

The aim of this research is to test the psychometric properties of the Questionnaire d’auto-efficacite mnesique (QAEM), the French version of the Memory Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (MSEQ). Reliability and validity of the MSEQ. Dev. Psychol. 25 (1989) 701–713, a scale based on Bandura's self-efficacy theory. After reviewing previous research into memory self-efficacy (MSE), we present a validation study for the QAEM, conducted on a sample of 288 older adults. The QAEM was found to show comparable reliability, sensitivity and construct validity to the MSEQ. The QAEM scores correlated with other metamemory variables and, weakly, with episodic memory performances.