Social resource correlates of levels and time-to-death-related changes in late-life affect

Little is known regarding how well psychosocial resources that promote well-being continue to correlate with affect into very late life. We examined social resource correlates of levels and time-to-death related changes in affect balance (an index of affective positivity) over 19 years among 1,297 by now deceased participants (aged 69 to 103 at first assessment, M = 80 years; 36% women) from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging. A steeper decline in affect balance was evident over a time-to-death metric compared with chronological age. Separating time-varying social resource predictors into between- and within-person components revealed several associations with level of affect balance, controlling for age at death, gender, functional disability, and global cognition. Between-person associations revealed that individuals who were more satisfied with family, and more socially active, expressed greater positivity compared with those who were less satisfied, and less socially active. Within-person associations indicated that participants reported higher positivity on occasions when they were more socially active. In addition, lower affect balance was associated with more frequent contact with children. Our results suggest that social engagement and satisfying relationships confer benefits for affective well-being that are retained into late life. However, our findings do not provide evidence to indicate that social resources protect against terminal decline in well-being.Australian Research Council (DP0879152 and DP130100428; LP 0669272; LP 100200413), and the National Health and Medical Research Council (Project Grant 229922)

Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms in Old Age: Integrating Age-, Pathology-, and Mortality-Related Changes.

yesLate life involves a variety of different challenges to well-being. This study extends and qualifies propositions drawn from the paradox of well-being in aging using 15-year longitudinal data on depressive symptoms from old and very old participants in the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (Baseline N 2,087; Mage 78.69 years; range: 65–103 years; 49.40% women). We first examined age-related trajectories in depressive symptoms from young-old to oldest-old, taking into account (changes in) relevant correlates, pathology, and mortality; and, second, we investigated gender differences in these trajectories. Results revealed that age-related trajectories of depressive symptoms were predictive of mortality hazards. The unique predictive effects of both level of, and change in, depressive symptoms were independent of one another and held after taking into account education as well as changes in marital status, living arrangements, cognitive function, and illness burden. In addition, results indicated that depressive symptoms were elevated among participants suffering from arthritis, and increased with age more markedly in men than in women. In particular, the significant Age Gender interaction indicated that the gender gap in depressive symptoms reduced from young-old to old-old and reversed in very old age when men showed more depressive symptoms than women. Qualifying the paradox of well-being in aging, findings demonstrated that depressive symptoms increased from young-old to oldest-old and suggest that age-, pathology-, and mortality-related changes should be examined in concert to advance our understanding of individual differences in depressive symptom trajectories in late life

Developmental change and intraindividual variability: Relating cognitive aging to cognitive plasticity, cardiovascular lability, and emotional diversity

Repeated assessments obtained over years can be used to measure individuals’ developmental change, whereas repeated assessments obtained over a few weeks can be used to measure individuals’ dynamic characteristics. Using data from a burst of measurement embedded in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE: Baltes & Mayer, 1999), we illustrate and examine how long-term changes in cognitive ability are related to short-term changes in cognitive performance, cardiovascular function, and emotional experience. Our findings suggest that “better” cognitive aging over approximately13 years was associated with greater cognitive plasticity, less cardiovascular lability, and less emotional diversity over approximately 2 weeks at age 90 years. The study highlights the potential benefits of multi-time scale longitudinal designs for the study of individual function and development

Neuroticism and Extraversion Magnify Discrepancies Between Retrospective and Concurrent Affect Reports

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Objective: Although research often relies on retrospective affect self-reports, little is known about personality's role in retrospective reports and how these converge or deviate from affect reported in the moment. This micro-longitudinal study examines personality (Neuroticism, Extraversion) and emotional salience (peak and recent affect) associations with retrospective-momentary affect report discrepancies over different time frames. Method: Participants were 179 adults aged 20–78 (M = 48.7 years; 73.7% Caucasian/White) who each provided up to 60 concurrent affect reports over 10 days, then retrospectively reported overall intensity of each affective state after 1 day and again after 1–2 months. Results: Multilevel models revealed that individuals retrospectively overreported or underreported various affective states, exhibiting peak associations for high arousal positive and negative affect, recency associations for low arousal positive affect, and distinct personality profiles that strengthened over time. Individuals high in both Extraversion and Neuroticism exaggerated high arousal positive and negative affect and underreported low arousal positive affect, high Extraversion/low Neuroticism individuals exaggerated high arousal positive affect and underreported low arousal positive affect, and low Extraversion/high Neuroticism individuals exaggerated high and low arousal negative affect. Conclusions: This study is the first to identify arousal-specific retrospective affect report discrepancies over time and suggests retrospective reports also reflect personality differences in affective self-knowledge.National Institutes of HealthMichael Smith Foundation for Health ResearchSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of CanadaCanada Research Chairs Programm

Life satisfaction shows terminal decline in old age : Longitudinal evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP)

Longitudinal data spanning 22 years, obtained from deceased participants of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; N = 1,637; 70 to 100 year olds), were used to examine if and how life satisfaction exhibits terminal decline at the end of life. Changes in life satisfaction were more strongly associated with distance to death than with distance from birth (chronological age). Multi-phase growth models were used to identify a transition point roughly four years prior to death wherein the prototypical rate of decline in life satisfaction tripled from –0.64 to –1.94 T-score units per year. Further individual-level analyses suggest that individuals dying at older ages spend more years in the terminal periods of life satisfaction decline than individuals dying at earlier ages. Overall, the evidence suggests that late-life changes in aspects of well-being are driven by mortality-related mechanisms and characterized by terminal decline