Beliefs about savoring in older adulthood: Aging and perceived health affect temporal components of perceived savoring ability.

The ability to savor positive life events is associated with higher emotional well-being; however, few studies have examined savoring ability in older adults. The present study used a longitudinal design to examine changes in perceived savoring abilities and associations with perceived health in older adulthood. Older adults (N=131) reported on beliefs about savoring and perceived health at baseline and 2½ years later. Perceived anticipation (savoring the future) and reminiscing (savoring the past) abilities declined from baseline to follow-up. Better perceived health at baseline predicted greater perceived reminiscing and anticipation abilities at follow-up. Greater perceived ability to savor the present moment at baseline predicted better perceived health at follow-up. Aging and poorer health focus older adults' thoughts on present-moment pleasures, which may benefit health, but may also lead to reductions in perceived anticipation and reminiscing abilities.

Purpose in life in ALS patient-caregiver dyads: A multilevel longitudinal analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Eudaemonic positive psychological health (PPH), such as purpose in life (PIL), may be maintained more than hedonic PPH, such as quality of life (QOL), for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and their caregivers across the disease course. Furthermore, patients' and caregivers' PPH may impact one another. The present study examined (a) PIL and QOL variance structures; (b) PIL and QOL trajectories from diagnosis, approaching death, with disease severity; and (c) between-dyad and within-dyad relationships for PIL and QOL in patients with ALS and their caregivers. METHOD: PIL and QOL were assessed in patient-caregiver dyads (N = 110) up to 7 times over 18 months. RESULTS: Multilevel models revealed the proportion of variance attributed to stable between-person differences was higher for PIL (patients = 74%; caregivers = 76%) than QOL (patients = 60%; caregivers = 55%). PIL and QOL declined in relation to disease severity and time. For PIL, proximity to diagnosis and death moderated within-person change; decline was generally faster following diagnosis and approaching death. Longitudinal within-dyad relationships revealed that patients' fluctuations in PIL were mirrored in their caregiver and vice versa. CONCLUSIONS: PIL was more stable than QOL and was therefore a potential psychological resource for patients and caregivers. Critical periods-after diagnosis and approaching death-accompanied more rapid PIL decline. QOL was also impacted by proximity to critical periods. PIL within-dyad relationships may reflect a shared disease experience. Psychological intervention focused on enhancing purpose, particularly during critical periods, is a promising direction for future study. (PsycINFO Database Record

Parents' Perceptions of and Responses to Children's Emotions: Relations with Meta-Emotion Philosophy and Adult Attachment.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated how parents' perceptions of, feelings toward, and anticipated responses to children's emotions relate to parents' meta-emotion philosophy (MEP) and attachment. DESIGN: Parents (112 mothers and 95 fathers) completed an online research study where they viewed photographs of unfamiliar girls and boys (aged 10 to 14 years) displaying varying intensities of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and neutral expressions. Parents labeled the emotion, identified the emotion's intensity, and reported their mirrored emotion and responses. They also completed measures assessing their MEP and attachment. RESULTS: MEP predicted parents' responses to children's negative emotion, in that greater emotion-coaching predicted greater accuracy in labeling emotions (boys only), a greater likelihood to interact with children, and for mothers to be further from the mean in either direction in their mirrored emotion. Attachment also predicted parents' responses to children's negative emotions: Parents higher in anxiety reported more mirrored emotion, and those higher in avoidance reported less mirrored emotion, lower intensity, and less willingness to interact (boys only). In exploratory models for positive emotion, parents' MEP did not predict their responses, but parents higher in attachment avoidance rated girls' positive emotions as less intense, reported less mirrored emotion, less willingness to interact, and less supportive responses, and those higher in anxiety showed the opposite pattern. CONCLUSIONS: Despite methodological limitations, results offer new evidence that parents' ratings on a standardized emotion perception task as well as their anticipated responses toward children's emotion displays are predicted by individual differences in their attachment and MEP.

Self-rated health and interleukin-6: Longitudinal relationships in older adults.

BACKGROUND: Both self-rated health (SRH) and inflammation are implicated in chronic diseases and premature mortality. Better SRH is associated with lower proinflammatory cytokines, but there is little evidence about whether this relationship is more stable or dynamic. OBJECTIVE: To study the between- and within-person associations between SRH and IL-6. METHODS: Older adults (N=131; Mage=75 years) rated their health and provided blood samples for analysis of IL-6 at separate occasions every 6 months over a period up to 5 years. Age, sex, BMI, neuroticism, and statin use were examined as covariates in multilevel models. RESULTS: In bivariate models, better SRH, lower BMI, younger age, and female sex correlated with lower IL-6. In multilevel models, stable SRH (between-person differences; p<.001) but not dynamic SRH (within-person changes; p=.93) correlated with IL-6. The stable relationship persisted with demographic and health covariates in the model. CONCLUSIONS: Better stable SRH but not dynamic SRH was robustly associated with lower IL-6 among older adults, lending support to previous cross-sectional findings on the relation between inflammatory markers and SRH. The findings suggest that trait-like mechanisms, rather than changes over a time scale of 6-month waves, govern this association. To further investigate the mechanisms behind the SRH-IL-6 association, studies with different measurement frequencies, higher within-person variability, and experimental approaches are warranted.

Current Directions in Stress and Human Immune Function.

Psychological stress has been linked empirically with dysregulation of facets of the human immune system, yet these effects are not the same in every situation or population. Recent research has made strides towards understanding risk factors for immune dysregulation as well as why these risks occur. This review discusses mechanisms and mediators underlying the stress-immune relation, the role of context in determining whether an immunologic responses to stress is adaptive versus maladaptive, and the stress-immune relation in populations including children exposed to early adversity, older adults, and individuals with clinical diagnoses. The reviewed work holds great promise for further elucidating the circumstances under which psychological stress has immunological consequences, and provides new directions for work in this field.

College students' use of communication technology with parents: comparisons between two cohorts in 2009 and 2011.

Although communication technology is beneficial to maintain important close relationships, not all findings suggest that communication technology use between college students and their parents is indicative of positive adjustment or relational qualities. A study in 2009 found that only 24.2% of college students used a social networking site (SNS) to communicate with a parent, yet those students reported more loneliness, anxious attachment, and conflict with their parent (Gentzler et al., 2011 ). Because technology and trends in use change rapidly, we investigated a new cohort of college students 2 years later to determine if rates of using communication technology with parents and their links to student adjustment have changed. Comparisons between 2009 and 2011 samples indicated that in-person contact and telephone use did not vary across cohorts. However, texting and SNS use with parents became more common, and using e-mail with parents declined. Consistent with the 2009 data, students' phone use with parents was related to positive relationship qualities (satisfaction, intimacy, support, instrumental aid). In the new 2011 sample, e-mail was linked to aid. However, the present findings indicate students' SNS use with parents is no longer linked to maladaptive outcomes. The study highlights how quickly the use and implications of communication technology changes, and suggests that communication patterns may reflect broader psychosocial adjustment and parent-child dynamics.

Atypical development of resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia in children at high risk for depression.

Compromised respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA, i.e., low cardiac vagal control) frequently characterizes clinically depressed adults and also has been detected in infants of depressed mothers; however, its existence has not been established in older at-risk offspring. We investigated developmental patterns of RSA in a sample of 163 5- to 14-year-old children, who were either at high risk for depression (due to having a parent with a childhood-onset mood disorder) or low-risk for depression. We hypothesized that high-risk children have lower resting RSA than do low-risk children, which could reflect atypical developmental trajectories. Children's RSA was assessed during resting baseline periods on multiple occasions, typically 1-year apart. Linear growth modeling indicated a group by age interaction. Low-risk children (but not the high-risk children) exhibited a significantly increasing trajectory in resting RSA with age. Mood disorders in offspring did not account for the Group X Age interaction effect. Our study provides new evidence that children at high risk for depression have an atypical developmental trajectory of RSA across late childhood.