Does ethnicity affect how older adults deal with stressors at home?

Numerous studies have examined stress in older adults but little research has examined the specific relationship between ethnicity and home stressors. We used a micro-longitudinal eight day daily diary study to examine reactivity to home stressors in older adults. 42 participants reported on 337 days from the Greater Raleigh Area all between the ages of 60 to 96 representing European-Americans and African-Americans. Participants reported their daily home stressor resolution (resolved or unresolved) and daily physical symptoms (e.g., joint pain, fatigue, headache). We found that European-Americans had a significantly higher number of physical symptoms on days with an unresolved home stressor than that of their African-American counterparts. Findings suggest ethnicity differences in the physical effects of home stressor resolution among older adults. Awareness of disparity is an important first step in closing the health gap and ethnicity should be included in future assessments of home stressors in older adults

Cultural differences in daily coupling of subjective views of aging and negative affect

Objectives The established link between subjective views of aging (VoA) and well-being shows variations across different cultures. Although VoA show daily fluctuations, little is known about cultural differences in such fluctuations and the daily coupling of VoA and well-being. We compared Israeli Arabs to Israeli Jews in the daily coupling of VoA and negative affect (NA). Methods Community-dwelling older adults (N=76, Mage=66.71) completed measures of subjective age, subjective accelerated aging, ageist attitudes, and NA over 14 consecutive days. Results Respondents reported higher daily NA when they felt older, reported to be aging faster, or had more ageist attitudes. The daily coupling between subjective age/subjective accelerated aging and NA was stronger among Israeli Arabs compared to Israeli Jews. There was no such interaction with ageist attitudes. Discussion It is important to adopt a cultural perspective when investigating daily fluctuations in VoA and their correlates. In applied contexts, this might help to identify cultural groups that are particularly sensitive to the effects of VoA

Daily stressors and memory failures in a naturalistic setting: Findings from the normative aging study

The role of stress in memory functioning has typically been examined in the laboratory with biological indicators of stress (i.e., stress hormones) and cognitive tests. These studies have generally found a negative association between stress and cognitive performance; that is, people who have higher levels of stress hormones tend to have poorer cognitive performance. The present investigation sought to test this relationship in a naturalistic setting by examining daily stressors and memory failures via a daily diary paradigm. Further, age differences in reactivity (the likelihood of reporting a memory failure when a stressor is experienced) were examined. The primary source of data was the most recent wave of the Normative Aging Study (NAS), a longitudinal study that began in 1961 to examine normal aging processes. One hundred twenty-one adults (69 men, 52 women, age range 44-89) participated in the present study and answered questions regarding their daily stressors and memory failures for eight consecutive evenings. Results from Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses indicated that on days when people experience stressors, they were more likely to also report memory failures compared to stressor-free days. Although age differences in reactivity were not apparent when examining the total frequency of stressors and memory failures, some age differences emerged when looking more specifically at stressor and memory failure type. This study did not directly test the underlying physiological processes of stressors and memory failures, but the results found in a naturalistic setting lend ecological validity to findings that have been previously restricted to the laboratory. Directions for future research (e.g., combining laboratory and naturalistic measures, sampling a wider age range, implementing other sampling techniques, etc.) are discussed

Analytic code for Study 1 for: Physical Reactivity to Daily Stressors: Age and Proactive Coping Matter

Analytic code and measures supplemen

The effect of control beliefs on the relationship between daily stressors and subjective age in younger adults

Abstract Experiencing stress can be associated with feeling and looking older. The goal of this study was to examine daily fluctuations in control beliefs as a potential moderator of the relationship between daily stressors and two indicators of subjective aging in younger adults. Data were collected from 107 younger adults between the ages of 18 and 36 (M = 19.96) who completed an online questionnaire via Qualtrics daily for 9 consecutive days. On Day 1, participants reported demographic information and on Days 2–9, participants reported their daily subjective ages (how old they felt and how old they looked), daily stressors, and perceptions of daily control beliefs. Results from multilevel models revealed that increases in daily stressors were associated with increases in both felt and look age. Although there was no main effect of control beliefs, control beliefs did function as a moderator of the relationship between daily stressors and felt age as well as between daily stressors and look age. Specifically, the aging effect of daily stressors was not significant on days with increases in control beliefs. These results suggest that young adults feel and look older on days when they experience higher levels of stressors and that increases in perceptions of control help to mitigate this effect

Mindfulness, inductive reasoning, and awareness of age‐related changes: A daily diary study

Abstract Mindfulness, understood as present‐centered thinking, has positive effects on cognition. Cognitive abilities fluctuate on a daily basis in older adulthood. Awareness of age‐related change (AARC) focuses on an individual's perception of life changes as a result of growing older and includes dimensions of both gains and losses. AARC losses are negative age‐related changes that are attributed to growing older, and have been linked to fluctuations in cognition. Utilizing Holas and Jankowski's cognitive model of mindfulness as a framework, we investigated the potential mediation effect of AARC losses as a type of perceived change in internal experiences. We used multilevel models to analyze daily diary data from 116 older adults (aged 60–90, M = 64.71, SD = 4.98). Participants provided baseline information on Day 1 and then completed parallel versions of inductive reasoning tests each day along with reports of daily mindfulness and AARC on Days 2–9. In line with the cognitive model of mindfulness, within‐person increases in daily mindfulness were associated with increases in inductive reasoning performance. Our results also extend the cognitive model of mindfulness because we found through multilevel mediation that increases in mindfulness were associated with decreases in AARC losses, which were then associated with increases in inductive reasoning performance. AARC losses significantly mediated the within‐person relationship between mindfulness and cognition. Efforts aimed at reducing perceived AARC losses might assist older adults in taking full advantage of the positive benefits of mindfulness on their daily cognitive abilities

Age and extraversion differences in heart rate reactivity during working memory tasks.

Research and theory have shown a link between heart rate reactivity during cognitive testing and extraversion in younger adults; however, similar work has not been conducted with older adults. This study was designed to explore age and extraversion-related differences in within-person heart rate (HR) reactivity during two working memory tasks of varying difficulty using a multi-level modeling approach. Across 570 total within-person assessments of continuous HR monitoring, 28 younger adults (M = 19.76, SD = 1.15) and 29 older adults (M = 71.19, SD = 6.63) were administered two working memory tasks (backward digit span and n-back). There were no age differences in reactivity during the backward digit span. However, similar to previous findings, on the more difficult n-back task, younger adults low in extraversion showed a trend toward higher HR reactivity than young adults high in extraversion. Interestingly, the older adults showed the opposite pattern in that lower extraversion older adults were less reactive than the higher extraversion older adults who showed the steepest increase in HR. The HR increase of the older adults high in extraversion may be an indication of higher engagement in this more difficult task. Individual differences in extraversion need to be taken into account when administering working memory tasks in older adults

The relevance of control beliefs for health and aging

Adults and those in later life with a high sense of control appear better off on many indicators of health and well-being. However, those who have a lower sense of control may be at increased risk for a wide range of negative behavioral, affective, and functional outcomes, including higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, use of fewer health protective behaviors and compensatory memory strategies (internal or external memory aids), and have poorer health and memory functioning. The apparent decline of the sense of control associated with aging is of concern especially given the adaptive value of maintaining beliefs in one's control over outcomes. This chapter presents a wealth of information about control beliefs, but there is much to explore before to fully understand the dynamic processes involved in changes and the linkages with outcomes. Sense of control is a promising dimension because it is amenable to change unlike more traditional stable personality traits. This can potentially lead researchers in the direction of new interventions to promote optimal aging