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.

Perceptions of task difficulty predict cognitive effort for older adults.

This study examined age differences in effort devoted to completing cognitively demanding tasks. Fifty-two younger adults ages 18-30 years (Mage = 21.19) and 57 older adults ages 61-93 years (Mage = 76.56) completed a series of memory tests. Following each test, participants rated the test's difficulty and had their blood pressure measured. Effort was indexed by systolic blood pressure response (SBP-R) with greater increases in SBP-R reflecting more effort. Multilevel modeling was used to examine age differences in the intraindividual association between trial-level subjective task difficulty and trial-level effort. Results showed that increases in task difficulty were significantly related to decreases in SBP-R for the older but not younger adults, suggesting the older adults disengaged from the tests they perceived as highly difficult. Findings support Selective Engagement Theory (Hess, 2014), which suggests the perceived cognitive costs of completing difficult tasks may reduce older adults' motivation to engage in the tasks.

A Coordinated Data Analysis of Four Studies Exploring Age Differences in Social Interactions and Loneliness During a Global Pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: Examining loneliness and social isolation during population-wide historical events may shed light on important theoretical questions about age differences, including whether these differences hold across different regions and the time course of the unfolding event. We used a systematic, preregistered approach of coordinated data analysis (CDA) of 4 studies (total N = 1,307; total observations = 18,492) that varied in design (intensive repeated-measures and cross-sectional), region, timing, and timescale during the first year of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. METHODS: We harmonized our data sets to a common period within 2020-2021 and created a common set of variables. We used a combination of ordinary least squares regression and multilevel modeling to address the extent to which there was within- and between-person variation in the associations between social isolation and loneliness, and whether these associations varied as a function of age. RESULTS: Within- and between-person effects of social interactions were negatively associated with loneliness in 1 study; in follow-up sensitivity analyses, these patterns held across early and later pandemic periods. Across all data sets, there was no evidence of age differences in the within-person or between-person associations of social interactions and loneliness. DISCUSSION: Applying the CDA methodological framework allowed us to detect common and divergent patterns of social interactions and loneliness across samples, ages, regions, periods, and study designs.

Traumatic losses permeate daily emotional experiences: roles of daily uplifts and subjective age.

Daily emotional experiences may vary depending on a stressor's intensity or source. The present study aimed to examine the interaction between traumatic loss, daily uplifts, and daily subjective age predicting daily negative affect. Results from a 14-day daily diary study of 440 US adults aged 50-85 showed that daily increases in uplifts were associated with decreases in negative affect, especially for those who reported a traumatic loss when they also experienced increases in subjective age. Based on our study, daily events and perceptions can have a considerable impact on daily functioning and may serve as important mechanisms after a traumatic loss. Although traumatic losses may impact individuals differently, incorporating daily uplifts, based on available resources and capacities, may foster daily emotional well-being.

A Wearable System for Continuous Monitoring and Assessment of Speech, Gait, and Cognitive Decline for Early Diagnosis of ADRD.

Early detection of cognitive decline is essential to study mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's Disease in order to develop targeted interventions and prevent or stop the progression of dementia. This requires continuous and longitudinal assessment and tracking of the related physiological and behavioral changes during daily life. In this paper, we present a low cost and low power wearable system custom designed to track the trends in speech, gait, and cognitive stress while also considering the important human factor needs such as privacy and compliance. In the form factors of a wristband and waist-patch, this multimodal, multi-sensor system measures inertial signals, sound, heart rate, electrodermal activity and pulse transit time. A total power consumption of 2.6 mW without any duty cycling allows for more than 3 weeks of run time between charges when 1500 mAh batteries are used.Clinical Relevance- Much earlier detection of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias may be possible by continuous monitoring of physiological and behavioral state using application specific wearable sensors during the activities of daily life.

Emotion Regulation Convoys: Individual and Age Differences in the Hierarchical Configuration of Emotion Regulation Behaviors in Everyday Life.

A key limitation of studying emotion regulation behavior is that there is currently no way to describe individual differences in use across a range of tactics, which could lead to investigations of intraindividual changes over time or interindividual differences as a function of personality, age, culture, or psychopathology diagnosis. We, therefore, introduce emotion regulation convoys. This research tool provides a snapshot of the hierarchy of emotion regulation tactics an individual favors across everyday life situations and how effective they are at regulating moods. We present data from a 3-month measurement burst study of emotion regulation behavior in everyday life in a sample (N = 236) of younger (18-39), middle-aged (40-59), and older adults (60-87), focusing on how individuals' convoys may vary in how much they include tactics that involve upregulating-positivity, downregulating-negativity, upregulating-negativity, as well as acceptance, and how these may be differentially effective. Among the most frequently used tactics (top tactics), older adults used a lower proportion of negativity-downregulating tactics than younger adults (p < .001), and younger adults' mood was more negatively affected by these tactics than middle-aged and older adults. Overall, using positivity-upregulating as a top tactic also predicted better mood post-regulation. Older adults' emotion regulation convoys may be made up of more effective tactics; in general, they reported more positive mood post-regulation than the other age groups. Convoys help us see emotion regulation as a hierarchical configuration of potentially effective behaviors, allowing us to test for between-group differences and within-person changes more precisely. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-023-00228-8.

Control Beliefs Mediate the Within-Person Relationship Between Everyday Activity Volition and Daily Subjective Age.

OBJECTIVES: Appraisal and interpretation of personal experiences resulting from interaction with situational contexts might play an important role in shaping subjective age at the within-person level, but it is unclear how this process unfolds. We propose that older adults evaluate situational contexts and reflect on their general psychological resources when determining their subjective age, and tested this proposal with volition of daily activities as a proxy for appraisal of situational contexts and control beliefs as a proxy for psychological resources. We hypothesize that appraising daily activities one engaged in as obligatory would deplete one's perceived control and concomitantly make one feel older. METHODS: Older adults (n = 116) ranging in age from 60 to 90 (M = 64.84) completed a 9-day daily diary study online, resulting in 743 total days. Participants reported their sociodemographic characteristics on Day 1 and major daily activities, volition of every reported activity, felt age, and control beliefs on Days 2-9. RESULTS: On days when older adults felt that activities they engaged in were of their own volition, they also felt more in control. A lower-level mediation result suggested that within-person control beliefs mediated the relationship between volition of daily activities and subjective age. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that older adults evaluate situational contexts and reflect on their control beliefs as a general psychological resource when determining their subjective age. These findings show the important role psychological resources play in determining subjective age from a within-person perspective and extended the within-person process proposed in previous theoretical models.

Combatting Election Stress: Anticipatory Coping and Daily Self-Reported Physical Health.

This study's purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of anticipatory coping as a possible mechanism to reduce daily self-reported physical health consequences of forecasting election-related stress. Elections are often stressful for people. However, the research on possible physical consequences of anticipated election-related stress and ways to counter its impact is limited. We used data from the 2018 U.S. Midterm Election Stress Coping and Prevention Every Day (ESCAPED) study, which provided daily diary responses from 140 participants across the U.S. and American Samoa, ages 19-86. Participants were recruited using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (mTurk) and were asked to fill out an online survey each day for 22 days before, the day of, and 7 days after the 2018 U.S. midterm election, which fell on November 6, 2018. Questions involved forecasting election-related stress, four forms of anticipatory coping, and daily self-reported physical health. Results from multilevel models suggested that on days when participants experienced an increase in their forecasting of election-related stressors and also experienced a decrease in their anticipatory coping related to problem analysis, their daily self-reported physical health decreased. These results highlight the role that future-oriented tactics could play in managing the physical consequences of election-related stress.

A Precautionary Tale: Individual Decision Making in the Time of COVID-19.

Precaution taking is an important part of managing COVID-19 and has been since the start of the pandemic. Guided by the Health Belief Model, two studies conducted during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic aimed to identify possible individual difference predictors of precautionary actions. Study 1 was an online, cross-sectional study using 763 adults aged 20-79 years old. Study 2, a 30-day daily diary study, examined daily precautions in 261 persons over the age of 55 years old. Study 1 and Study 2 indicated that COVID-19 knowledge predicted precautionary behaviors. Multilevel models from Study 2 indicated that daily increases in in-person interactions and leaving home were associated with decreases in precautions, but increases in disruption to routine were associated with increases in precautions. In both studies, including concurrent and lagged models in Study 2, significant interactions between information seeking and perceived risk suggested higher information seeking was related to higher precautions for those who consider themselves low risk. Findings highlight the burden of daily precautions and potentially modifiable factors of engagement in precautions.

Coping With 'Scanxiety': Within-Person Processes in Lung Cancer.

Background: Patients with early-stage lung cancer undergo potentially curative therapy, and continue to undergo regularly scheduled CT scans to determine if cancer has reappeared, spread, or stayed the same. This process can be fraught with anxiety, coined 'Scanxiety'. The present study examined how coping and scan-related anxiety fluctuate within-person before one's scan. Method: Twenty five individuals with lung cancer who had received curative intent treatment (M age = 62.33, [SD = 8.10], 96% women, 80% white) participated in the study, which had two parts. First, participants provided information about proactive coping and scan-related anxiety every 30 days. Next, a daily diary study was implemented for 7 consecutive days before their CT scan, as well as the day of their CT scan, where participants reported on their daily anticipatory coping and scan-related anxiety. The 25 participants provided 59 monthly and 146 daily surveys for analysis. Results: Multilevel models revealed significant main effects of monthly proactive coping on monthly scan-related anxiety, as well as daily anticipatory coping on daily scan-related anxiety. On months when participants decreased their use of proactive coping, they also reported decreases in scan-related anxiety for that month. On days when participants reported decreases in outcome fantasy and stagnant deliberation, they reported decreases in scan-related anxiety for that day. Finally, a significant interaction was found such that on days when middle-aged adults reported increases in problem analysis, they also reported increases in scan-related anxiety for that day. Conclusion: These findings are the first to characterize how participants' coping and scanxiety fluctuate in the months and days prior to their CT scans. Results indicated that focusing on the present may be more beneficial in reducing scan-related anxiety rather than thinking about the future. Future work should implement strategies to reduce scanxiety by focusing on the present among those with lung cancer.

Age, education, and political involvement differences in daily election-related stress.

Stress in daily life is rather common, but elections can present unique challenges. Evaluating the impact of individual characteristics, behaviors, and political beliefs on stress processes is imperative to understanding how elections influence psychological well-being. Exploring how these individual and behavioral characteristics interacted to predict exposure to election-related stressors, we hypothesized that age, education, and past socio-political involvement would be associated with exposure to election-related stressors. In the 2018 U.S. Midterm Election Stress Coping and Prevention Every Day (ESCAPED) study, 140 participants in the United States and territories aged 19-86 were recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk for a 30-day daily diary study. Collectively, participants completed a total of 1196 reports between October 15, 2018 and November 13, 2018. The midterm election was November 6, 2018. Each day, participants reported on past political participation, election stress anticipation, and exposure to election-related stressors. Confirming our hypothesis, on days when people were more politically active and on days when stress anticipation increased, exposure to election-related stressors increased. Age differences in exposure depended on political activity in the last 24 h, with older adults exhibiting a steeper increase in exposure following political activity, especially if they were highly educated. However, higher education was protective against election-related stressors among younger adults even with increases in political activity. Individuals' experiences, characteristics, and daily decisions influence the likelihood of exposure to election-related stressors. Additionally, for younger adults, education may function as a protective factor when they engage in political activities.

No Pain, No Gain? Personality Associations With Awareness of Aging Depend on Arthritis.

Background: Awareness of aging brings to light one's own perceived behavioral, physical, and cognitive changes associated with getting older. Personality and physical illness are each related to two components of awareness of aging: attitudes toward own aging (ATOA), and awareness of age-related changes (AARC). Here, we move beyond main effects to examine how personality and arthritis interact with respect to awareness of aging. Materials and Methods: 296 participants (M age = 64.67, SD = 4.36, Range = 60-90 years, 49.7% women) completed online self-report questionnaires of personality, arthritis, ATOA, and AARC gains and losses. Results: We ran three hierarchical multiple regression models to test how personality traits and arthritis interacted to predict ATOA, AARC gains, and AARC losses, respectively. Higher extraversion was related to positive ATOA, and higher openness was related to positive ATOA and more AARC gains. Higher neuroticism was related to negative ATOA, more AARC losses, and less AARC gains. We found a main effect for arthritis, where those with arthritis reported more AARC losses. Lastly, we found a significant interaction between arthritis and agreeableness when predicting AARC gains. Among those with low agreeableness, people with arthritis reported significantly more AARC gains compared to those without arthritis. Conclusion: Personality and arthritis are each important for awareness of aging. Overall, our study suggests that for those with arthritis, it is especially important to consider behavioral and cognitive factors related to agreeableness, as they may be important means of promoting positive views on aging.

Aging attitudes and changes in the costs of cognitive engagement in older adults over 5 years.

The costs associated with performing a specific activity may play an important role in determining engagement, potentially impacting the willingness of older adults to engage in activities-particularly those with high demands-that may have benefits for physical and cognitive health. The present study examined changes in both objective (effort expenditure) and subjective (perceived task demands) costs associated with engagement in a cognitively challenging memory-scan task across a 5-year period in 163 older adults aged 64-81. Consistent with assumptions of selective engagement theory (SET; Hess, 2014), the effort associated with performing the task-as assessed by systolic blood pressure responses-was observed to increase over time. Subjective assessments of costs, as assessed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration task load index (NASA TLX), were also observed to increase. In addition, the increases in both objective and subjective costs were greatest at high levels of task demands. We further found that both the effort and, to a lesser extent, perceived costs associated with performance were moderated by aging attitudes. Specifically, more positive attitudes were associated with greater effort expenditure and lower perceived costs. These findings suggest that negative attitudes about aging may have detrimental effects on perceived ability to perform challenging tasks. Given the importance of costs in determining activity participation, promoting positive aging attitudes along with more realistic perceptions of task demands may provide important means for promoting engagement in beneficial activities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Anticipatory stress during an election: A daily diary study.

Previous research on election stress has focused on reacting to stressors that already occurred, whereas the forecasting of future stressors and associated responses have been underexamined. Leveraging the 2018 U.S. mid-term election, we examined anticipatory stress response, operationalised as the within-person association between daily stressors forecasting and negative affect (NA). We also explore whether such responses might be related to time, partisanship and political orientation. Participants were 125 adults in the U.S. who provided 1056 daily reports in a 29-day daily diary study surrounding the election. Results indicated that daily forecasts of election stressors contributed to increased NA independent of election stressor exposure. Election stressor forecasting was more pronounced during pre-election days and the election day than post-election days, as well as greater in conservatives than liberals. Coping with anticipatory stress may be important for managing election stress.

Experiencing and Forecasting COVID-19 Daily Stress on Mental Health Reactivity Across Age and Race.

OBJECTIVES: This study systematically evaluates age and race differences in mental health symptoms as they unfold microlongitudinally during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with a focus on within-person reactivity to forecasting and experiencing COVID-19 stress. METHOD: A daily diary approach was used to examine predictors of daily anxiety and depressive symptoms among 526 adults (White [54%] and Black American [46%]) aged 21-79. A total of 3,605 online diaries were collected for 21 consecutive days between October and November, 2020. In addition to mental health symptoms, participants reported forecasted (next 24 h) stress as well as experienced (past 24 h) stress related to COVID-19. RESULTS: Patterns of reactivity to forecasted and experienced COVID-19 stress depended on age and race. White older adults displayed greater reactivity to COVID-19-related stress than White younger adults, but the effects of COVID-19-related stress were consistently detrimental for the daily anxiety of Black Americans, regardless of age. For Black Americans, age was less negatively associated with depressive symptoms than for White Americans. Increases in experienced COVID-19 stress were also more strongly associated with increases in depressive symptoms for Black Americans relative to White participants. DISCUSSION: This study moves beyond cross-sectional, descriptive work within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasizes the dynamic nature of within-person reactivity patterns that differ by age and race. Although White older adults experienced an increase in daily anxiety when forecasting COVID-19 stress, the co-occurring pandemic of systemic racism may be more powerful than age-related vulnerabilities for Black adults.

Racialized emotion recognition accuracy and anger bias of children's faces.

Research suggests that individuals are racially biased when judging the emotions of others (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002) and particularly regarding attributions about the emotion of anger (Halberstadt, Castro, Chu, Lozada, & Sims, 2018; Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003). Systematic, balanced designs are rare, and are comprised of adults viewing adults. The present study expands the questions of racialized emotion recognition accuracy and anger bias to the world of children. Findings that adults demonstrate either less emotion accuracy and/or greater anger bias for Black versus White children could potentially explain some of the large racialized disciplinary discrepancies in schools. To test whether racialized emotion recognition accuracy and anger bias toward children exists, we asked 178 prospective teachers to complete an emotion recognition task comprised of 72 children's facial expressions depicting six emotions and divided equally by race (Black, White) and gender (female, male). We also assessed implicit bias via the child race Implicit Association Test and explicit bias via questionnaire. Multilevel modeling revealed nuanced racialized emotion recognition accuracy with a race by gender interaction, but clear racialized anger bias toward both Black boys and girls. Both Black boys and Black girls were falsely seen as angry more often than White boys and White girls. Higher levels of either implicit or explicit bias did not increase odds of Black children being victim to anger bias, but instead decreased odds that White children would be misperceived as angry. Implications for addressing preexisting biases in teacher preparation programs and by children and parents are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Anticipatory Coping Diversity: Implications for Emotional, Physical, and Cognitive Reactivity to Daily Stressors.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines the concept of anticipatory coping diversity, reflected in the evenness and richness of anticipatory coping strategies. The overarching goal of this study is to show how individual differences in anticipatory coping diversity are associated with emotional, physical, and cognitive reactivity to daily stressors and to examine whether these dynamic characteristics might differ between younger and older adults. METHODS: 107 younger (M age = 19.44, range 18-36) and 116 older (M age = 64.71, range 60-90) participants reported on 1,627 total days via an online daily diary study. Participants reported baseline demographic information (Day 1) and anticipatory coping, stressor exposure, negative affect, physical symptoms, and memory failures (Days 2-9). Anticipatory coping diversity was indexed at the person level using Shannon's entropy to capture the evenness and richness of anticipatory coping strategies across stressors. RESULTS: People with more anticipatory coping diversity were less emotionally reactive, but more physically and cognitively reactive to daily stressors. Older adults exhibited less anticipatory coping diversity than younger adults, but the patterns of anticipatory coping diversity differences in reactivity appeared to be consistent across younger and older adults. DISCUSSION: Anticipatory coping diversity reflects a useful index within the stress process that is associated with benefits as well as costs. These findings bridge dispositional and contextual approaches to coping and highlight the importance of understanding how deployment of coping strategies is related to well-being across the adult life span.

Core Beliefs Disruption in the Context of an Election: Implications for Subjective Well-Being.

Major life events often challenge the core beliefs people hold about the world, which is a crucial cognitive process predictive of adjustment outcomes. Elections have been associated with physical and socioemotional responses, but what is unclear is whether core beliefs can be disrupted and what implication this disruption might have for well-being. In two studies, we examined the association between core beliefs disruption and well-being in the context of the 2018 U.S. midterm election. In both studies, participants reported a small degree of disruption of core beliefs due to the election. In Study 1, a 14-day daily diary study spanning the weeks before and after the election, multilevel modeling on 529 daily reports revealed that greater disruption of core beliefs was associated with lower mean levels of life satisfaction and greater changes in positive and negative affect. In Study 2, a cross-sectional study conducted 40 days following the election, linear regression analyses on 767 adults aged 18-77 from all 50 states revealed that the disruption of core beliefs due to the midterm election was positively associated with current life satisfaction. The effect held when controlling for multiple confounding factors. These findings suggest that elections can trigger disruption of core beliefs, and this disruption may spill over to subjective well-being in the short term but may positively contribute to post-election adjustment.

Daily stressor forecasting and anticipatory coping: Within-Person processes in age differences in positive emotional reactivity.

Objectives: Whereas previous work has almost exclusively focused on negative emotional reactivity to daily stressors, we focus on positive emotional reactivity - changes in positive emotions in response to a stressor. We examine daily forecasting and anticipatory coping for next-day home-related stressors within the temporal space before stressors to examine positive emotional reactivity in younger and older adults.Methods: We recruited 107 younger (M age = 19.44, range 18-36) and 116 older (M age = 64.71, range 60-90) participants who completed a nine day daily online diary for 1,627 total days. Participants reported demographics on Day 1 and then stressor forecasts, anticipatory coping, stressor exposure, and positive affect on Days 2-9.Results: Older adults had more positive affect when using outcome fantasy for next-day home stressors compared to younger adults, but forecasting a home stressor was associated with a stronger increase in positive affect for younger adults compared to older adults.Conclusion: These results reveal complex and dynamic links that exist in age differences in stressor forecasting, anticipatory coping, and their association with positive affect. The context of daily stressors is important to understand the nuances of matching stressor forecasts and anticipatory coping for positive emotional well-being in younger and older adults.

Daily experiences of subjective age discordance and well-being.

Subjective age discordance (SAD) captures the difference between how old one feels and how old one would ideally like to be. We investigated the presence, strength, and fluctuation of this discordance in daily life as well as its relationship to various indicators of physical and psychological well-being with an 8-day diary study. Participants were 116 older and 107 younger adults who completed daily measures of felt age, ideal age, positive and negative affect, physical symptoms, and stressors. We operationalized SAD as felt age minus ideal age divided by chronological age and compared the utility of this discordance to the more established proportional discrepancy of felt age from chronological age. Daily SAD was present in both age groups, such that individuals idealized younger ages than they felt. This discordance was larger in older than younger adults, although younger adults exhibited more daily fluctuations in SAD. Within-person increases in SAD were associated with lower positive affect, whereas larger SAD at the between-person level was associated with more physical symptoms and stressors. These relationships were over and above the associations of felt and chronological age with the outcomes suggesting the utility of daily SAD for understanding daily physical and psychological well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).