Between-Person and Daily Within-Person Variation Patterns in Measures of Views of Aging.

OBJECTIVES: Recent work suggests that views of aging (VOA; a meta-construct reflective of individuals' aging-related thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and experiences) fluctuate within persons in day-to-day life. This study characterized the extent of daily variability in VOA and explored differences in variability patterns based on measure to enhance understanding of the dynamic nature of VOA. METHODS: An online sample of 122 adults aged 26-78 years completed multiple measures of VOA (subjective age, age group identity, aging attitudes, implicit theories of aging, awareness of age-related losses or gains) on each of 7 consecutive days. We partitioned variance in responses to each measure at the person level and day level to assess between-person and within-person variability, respectively. RESULTS: Between-person variability accounted for most of the total observed variation in VOA, whereas within-person variability accounted for a smaller amount. Different measures exhibited different ratios of between-person to within-person variation, with the lowest ratios observed for subjective age. Exploration of potential differences between age groups also suggests lower ratios in younger compared to older adults. DISCUSSION: Analyses suggest relative stability in daily measures of VOA over a 1-week period. Further study of measures (and age groups) showing greater within-person variability (evidenced by lower ratios of between-person to within-person variation) can increase understanding about constructs with greater sensitivity to fluctuating contexts. It can also inform future work linking VOA to other phenomenon in daily life.

Cognitive Interference in the Context of Daily Stressors, Daily Awareness of Age-Related Change, and General Aging Attitudes.

OBJECTIVES: Previous diary work indicates that older people experience more intrusive and unwanted thoughts (i.e., cognitive interference) on days with stressors. We examined additional predictors of daily cognitive interference to enhance understanding of the psychological context surrounding this link. We specifically focused on factors related to subjective experiences of aging based on studies that have related higher stress and impairments in cognition such as executive control processes (working memory) to negative age stereotypes. Consistent with these findings, we generally expected stronger stress effects on cognitive interference when daily self-perceptions of aging (i.e., within-person fluctuations in awareness of age-related losses [AARC losses]) and general aging attitudes (i.e., individual differences in attitudes toward own aging [ATOA]) were more negative. METHODS: Participants (n = 91; aged 60-80) on Amazon's Mechanical Turk completed surveys on 9 consecutive days, reporting on their ATOA (Day 1) as well as their stressors, AARC losses, and cognitive interference (Days 2-9). RESULTS: Multilevel models showed that people reported more cognitive interference on days with more AARC losses. Individuals with positive ATOA also experienced less cognitive interference on days with more stressors, whereas those with negative ATOA experienced more. DISCUSSION: Both individual differences and fluctuating daily perceptions of aging appear to be important for older adults' cognitive interference. Consistent with other work, positive ATOA protected against daily stressor effects. Further elucidating these relationships can increase understanding of and facilitate efforts to improve (daily) cognitive experiences in older adults.

Predictors of engagement in young and older adults: The role of specific activity experience.

Activity that places demands on cognitive resources has positive effects on cognitive health in old age. To further understand determinants of age-group differences in participation, we examined how negative aging stereotypes and responses associated with a cognitively challenging activity influenced future willingness to engage in that activity. Sixty-nine young (20-40 years) and 80 older (63-84 years) adults performed a letter-number sequencing (LNS) task at different levels of demand for 15 min, during which systolic blood pressure responses-a measure of effort mobilization-and subjective perceptions of task demands were assessed. Approximately half the participants were primed with a negative aging stereotype prior to this task. Following the LNS task, participants completed an effort-discounting task, with resulting subjective values indicating their willingness to perform the task at each level of demand. As expected, both subjective and objective indicators of cognitive demands as well as performance were associated with future willingness to engage in a difficult task, with these effects being significantly greater for older adults. In addition, although stereotype activation influenced older adults' engagement levels in the LNS task, it did not moderate willingness. Together, the results indicate that, relative to younger adults, older adults' decisions to engage in cognitively challenging activities are disproportionately affected by their subjective perceptions of demands. Interestingly, actual engagement with the task and associated success result in reduced perceptions of difficulty and greater willingness to engage. Thus, overcoming faulty and discouraging task perceptions may promote older adults' engagement in demanding but potentially beneficial activities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Managing expectations: How stress, social support, and aging attitudes affect awareness of age-related changes.

The degree to which social support (SS) moderates the effects of stress on self-perceptions of aging may depend on individual differences in general aging attitudes. We examined how stress, different types of SS, and general expectations regarding aging (ERA) affect awareness of age-related changes (AARCs). The sample included 137 adults (21-76 years; 56.2% women) who took an online survey on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Regression analyses showed differential moderation of stress effects due to ERA and the SS measure (perceived and received) and function (emotional and instrumental). Received emotional SS was only associated with AARC losses, whereas perceived support-both emotional and instrumental-was associated with AARC gains and losses. Findings may help guide future work aimed at promoting health and well-being in adulthood.

Perceived Benefits and Costs Contribute to Young and Older Adults' Selectivity in Social Relationships.

This article explores the influence of perceived benefits and costs on willingness to engage in social interactions in 32 young adults aged 20 to 40 years and 38 older adults aged 65 to 85 years. Results showed (1) increases in perceived benefits and importance of each relationship but decreases in perceived costs associated with increases in network centrality, (2) reduced willingness in older adults to engage with social partners for whom perceived costs outweighed benefits, and (3) perceived costs and benefits subsumed the effects of the affective qualities of social interactions. Findings support an analysis of social behavior based on the selective engagement theory (Hess, 2014), with selection effects in willingness to engage in social interactions related to perceived benefits and costs.

Differential focus on probability and losses between young and older adults in risky decision-making.

We examined young and older adults' use of descriptive information about risk (i.e., probability and expected value) in financial decision-making. In Experiment 1, participants chose between lotteries in pairs of bets that offered either two risky gains or one risky gain and one sure gain. Whereas they showed a strong and indiscriminate preference for high-probability gambles in risky-risky pairs, they selected sure options at high rates and risky options at low rates in risky-sure pairs, with slightly stronger effects in older relative to young adults due to age differences in ability. Experiment 2 involved the same task but in terms of losses. Participants, especially older adults, preferred low-probability gambles not accounted for by age differences in ability. Results suggest minimal consideration of expected value and a strong focus on probabilities in decision-making. They also suggest that cognitive ability and chronic goals differentially influence age effects depending on risk context.

Resource or Hindrance? The benefits and costs of social support for functional difficulties and its implications for depressive symptoms.

OBJECTIVES: The impact of social support on the relationship between stress and well-being remains somewhat inconclusive, with work suggesting either null, buffering, or amplification effects. The current study investigated the conditions in which perceived social support is likely to act as a buffer or amplifier by considering individual differences in self-perceptions of aging. METHODS: Using data from two subsamples of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (graduates: 70-74 years, siblings: 40-92 years), we examined how perceived social support (emotional versus instrumental) and self-perceptions of aging (SPA) moderated the effect of functional limitations on depressive symptoms (DS). RESULTS: Although emotional support positively predicted DS, its effects did not depend on SPA. Instrumental support was associated with both increases and decreases in well-being that were dependent upon SPA. Functional limitations predicted more DS at both low and high levels of instrumental support when SPA were negative. However, when SPA were positive, low levels of social support were found to decrease depressive symptoms, and high levels were found to increase depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The impact of social social may enhance or deteriorate well-being, depending on how it interacts with self-evaluative beliefs. Findings offer insights as to the boundary conditions associated with the (positive) effects of social support and SPA, and highlight the need for continued research on the mechanisms associated these effects.

The role of cognitive costs, attitudes about aging, and intrinsic motivation in predicting engagement in everyday activities.

Engagement in cognitively demanding everyday activities has been shown to benefit cognitive health in later life. We investigated the factors that influence engagement, with specific interest in determining the extent to which the costs of engaging cognitive resources are associated with intrinsic motivation and, ultimately, participation in everyday activities. Older adults (N = 153) aged from 65 to 81 years completed a challenging cognitive task, with the costs of cognitive engagement-operationalized as the effort required to maintain performance-assessed using systolic blood pressure responses (SBP-R). We also assessed participation in everyday activities using both 2-year retrospective reports and five daily reports over a 5-week period. Structural models revealed that lower levels of costs were associated with more positive attitudes about aging, which in turn were associated with higher levels of intrinsic motivation. Motivation was subsequently predictive of everyday activity engagement, with the effect being specific to those activities thought to place demands on cognitive resources. The measure of engagement had minimal impact on the nature of the observed effects, suggesting that the retrospective and weekly assessments were tapping into similar constructs. Taken together, the results are consistent with expectations derived from Selective Engagement Theory (Hess, 2014), which argues that engagement in demanding activities is related to the cost associated with such engagement, which in turn leads to selective participation through changes in motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Use of descriptive and experiential information in decision making by young and older adults.

Age differences involving decision by description versus decision by experience were examined using the same general task structure to facilitate comparisons across decision types. Experiment 1 compared younger (19-43 years) and older (65-85 years) adults in four different experimental conditions involving a choice between a low-risk, low-return bet versus a high-risk, high-return bet. Experiment 2 compared young (18-27 years) to older (60-87 years) adults using similar experimental conditions, but with decisions involving a risky versus a certain option. Contrary to expectations, minimal differences were observed between ages in either study. Higher levels of ability and numeracy were associated with better performance and greater ability to benefit from experience, but the impact of these factors was not moderated by age. The results suggest that factors other than the simple distinction between decisions by description versus experience are necessary to characterize the nature of age effects in decision-making.

Context Influences on the Subjective Experience of Aging: The Impact of Culture and Domains of Functioning.

Background and Objectives: Attitudes about aging influence how people feel about their aging and affect psychological and health outcomes in later life. Given cross-cultural variability in such attitudes, the subjective experience of aging (e.g., subjective age [SA]) may also vary, potentially accounting for culture-specific patterns of aging-related outcomes. Our study explored cultural variation in SA and its determinants. Research Design and Methods: American (N = 569), Chinese (N = 492), and German (N = 827) adults aged 30-95 years completed a questionnaire that included instruments measuring basic demographic information, SA, beliefs about thresholds of old age, control over life changes, and age dependency of changes in eight different life domains (i.e., family, work). Results: Analyses revealed consistency across cultures in the domain-specificity of SA, but differences in the amount of shared variance across domains (e.g., Chinese adults exhibited greater homogeneity across domains than did Americans and Germans). Cultural differences were also observed in levels of SA in some domains, which were attenuated by domain-specific beliefs (e.g., control). Interestingly, beliefs about aging accounted for more cultural variation in SA than did sociodemographic factors (e.g., education). Discussion and Implications: Our results demonstrate that subjective perceptions of aging and everyday functioning may be best understood from a perspective focused on context (i.e., culture, life domain). Given its important relation to functioning, examination of cross-cultural differences in the subjective experience of aging may highlight factors that determine variations in aging-related outcomes that then could serve as targets of culture-specific interventions promoting well-being in later life.

Context influences on the relationship between views of aging and subjective age: The moderating role of culture and domain of functioning.

Subjective age has been shown to reliably predict a variety of psychological and physical health outcomes, yet our understanding of its determinants is still quite limited. Using data from the Aging as Future project, the authors examined the degree to which views of aging influence subjective age and how this influence varies across cultures and domains of everyday functioning. Using data from 1,877 adults aged from 30 to 95 years of age collected in China, Germany, and the United States, they assessed how general attitudes about aging and perceptions of oneself as an older adult influenced subjective age estimates in 8 different domains of functioning. More positive attitudes about aging were associated with older subjective ages, whereas more positive views of self in old age were associated with younger subjective age. It is hypothesized that these effects are reflective of social-comparison processes and self-protective mechanisms. These influences varied considerably over contexts, with views of aging having a greater impact in domains associated with stronger negative stereotypes of aging (e.g., health) compared to those with more positive ones (e.g., family). Culture also moderated the impact of aging views in terms of the strength of prediction, direction of effect, and age of greatest influence, presumably due to cultural differences in the salience and strength of aging-related belief systems across contexts. The results illustrate the contextual sensitivity of subjective age and highlight the role played by an individual's views of old age-both in general and regarding oneself-in determining their own experience of aging. (PsycINFO Database Record