Longing for grandparenthood: Its association with life satisfaction in late middle adulthood.

The present study applies the life-span theoretical concept of life longing (Sehnsucht) to grandparenthood as an important normative transition of middle and late adulthood that can be hoped for but not acted upon. A cross-sectional online study was conducted with N = 477 parents (73.5% women; age range: 40-81 years) whose adult children have not (yet) had offspring. Longing for grandparenthood was measured with a grandparenthood-specific adaptation of an established self-report questionnaire (Life Longing Questionnaire) and by employing a bifactor exploratory structural equation model (ESEM). As expected, strong expressions of longing for grandparenthood were associated with lower life satisfaction. Emotional support by the partner (here, perceiving the partner as understanding this Sehnsucht) offset this negative relationship (as did dispositional optimism, which an ancillary analysis revealed). By contrast, control over the longing fantasies did not help to attenuate the association between longing for grandparenthood and life satisfaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

How to alleviate the agony of providing negative feedback: Emotion regulation strategies affect hormonal stress responses to a managerial task.

Providing negative feedback can be demanding, as it typically requires dealing with multiple negative emotions. The first aim of this study was to transfer this work-related task to a new laboratory protocol and to investigate short-term hormonal changes among feedback providers. The second aim was to test if such hormonal stress responses can be attenuated through a priori instructions on how to regulate emotions. Each of 150 participants (51% women) provided eight saliva samples before, during, and after anticipating and conducting a negative feedback conversation with a professional actor who displayed negative emotional reactions. Participants were divided into four conditions regarding the way they were instructed to regulate their emotions: expressive suppression (keeping a neutral expression); cognitive reappraisal (staying task-oriented and emotionally distanced); affect utilization (moving towards and using emotions); or control condition. By means of three-phase spline growth models, latent growth factors during baseline, stress response, and recovery were specified. Providing negative feedback was followed by significant temporary testosterone decreases as well as cortisol increases. Testosterone (but not cortisol) responses were attenuated when feedback providers had been instructed to either follow a cognitive reappraisal or affect utilization strategy. This study provides evidence that a typical managerial task, that is, having to provide negative feedback, is a testosterone- and cortisol-relevant experience. Down-regulation of an individual's emotional involvement through reappraisal, as well as the newly introduced technique of moving towards and making use of the interaction partner's emotions (affect utilization), revealed consequences in terms of attenuating the testosterone response to stress.

Applying different emotion regulation strategies while providing negative feedback: Introduction of a new laboratory protocol.

One aim of creating a new laboratory protocol was to investigate stress responses while being confronted with a work-related task, that is, having to provide negative feedback. It was central to the development of the scenario to make potential testosterone and cortisol responses measurable. The first part of the protocol comprises the introduction to the cover story, that is, being a member of the assessors' team as part of a larger assessment center program aiming to estimate the proficiency of students prior to their entry into professional life. Watching a video of one of the assessment center's candidates and having to assess his performance in a self-presentation task was introduced to personally involve participants in the feedback conversation they had to conduct with the same candidate later on. A second aim was to introduce an experimental manipulation in the form of instructions and brief tutorials regarding different emotion regulation strategies to apply. Participants were randomly assigned to one out of four conditions: expressive suppression (keeping a neutral expression); cognitive reappraisal (staying task-oriented and emotionally distanced); affect utilization (moving towards and using emotions); or control condition. Distinguishing these ways to regulate one's emotions enabled us to reveal differential hormonal stress responses: Applying either cognitive reappraisal or affect utilization strategies alleviated temporary testosterone declines compared with the other two conditions. This method article contains details regarding the procedure as well as the following documents in their original wording: • Introduction to the cover story (being a member of the assessors' team, observation of the attendant's self-presentation, assessment dimensions) • Slides and audio instructions regarding experimental conditions (how to regulate emotions) • Documents handed out to assist participants in conducting the feedback conversation.

Nail-biters and thrashing wins: Testosterone responses of football fans during World Cup matches.

Two main hypotheses have been formulated to explain short-term testosterone responses to competitions. The challenge hypothesis and the biosocial model of status make different predictions concerning the point of time, direction, and meaning of hormonal changes. This field study investigated whether testosterone reacts to experiences of challenge during the early stages of a competition or to experiences of status change as a consequence of the competition's outcome. Over a period of 28 days, approximately 2000 salivary testosterone samples were collected from 82 football fans (53% men), while they were watching the matches of their favorite national team during the 2014 World Cup. Conducting repeated measurements across seven competitive events (i.e., matches) and over the course of each match allowed us to split vicarious experiences during each competition into phases of challenge and phases of status change. For both sexes, the results revealed discriminable testosterone trajectories depending on whether the fans experienced highly competitive matches or quick victories. By use of a discontinuous change model, maximal testosterone increases were detected during experiences of challenge. In contrast, a return to pre-contest baseline testosterone levels was initiated as soon as a status gain became certain. Testosterone responsiveness was partly moderated by the subjective importance of the competitive event. Thus, this study provides evidence in favor of the challenge hypothesis and emphasizes the value of conducting high-resolution within-subject designs to further explain the adaptive meaning of androgen responses.