Psychology and Aging最新文献

Rooted in the premises of lifespan developmental theory, the concept of awareness of age-related change (AARC) posits that growing older comes with both experiences of gains and losses across different behavioral domains. However, little is known about how age-related change is perceived across the entire adult lifespan, provided that respective measures can be validly compared. Further, few studies have adopted an approach that examines gains and losses simultaneously to study a potential shift in the ratio of perceived age-related gains and losses from adolescence to advanced old age. Using cross-sectional data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this study tested the measurement invariance of the 10-item AARC short form and examined age differences in the awareness of age-related changes across 1,612 participants aged 16-93 years. First, partial measurement invariance of the AARC-Gains and AARC-Losses scales was established, allowing for valid group comparisons across young adulthood, midlife, and old age. Second, results indicated that people experience more AARC-Gains than AARC-Losses throughout the adult lifespan. However, older adults exhibited an increasingly less favorable gains-to-losses ratio, primarily driven by more loss experiences. Gain experiences were mostly stable across age groups. Third, differences in levels of AARC were related to individuals' background characteristics relevant at the respective time of life, such as education (early adulthood), employment (midlife), and social resources (old age). These results highlight the utility of considering a broad age range when examining the nature and correlates of age differences in perceived age-related gains and losses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

This study aims to evaluate the directionality of the association between loneliness and cognitive performance in older adults, accounting for confounding factors. Data were from 55,662 adults aged ≥ 50 years who participated in Waves 5-8 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Loneliness was assessed with the Three-Item Loneliness Scale (TILS) and with a one-item direct question. Cognitive performance was assessed with four measures: verbal fluency, numeracy, immediate recall, and delayed recall. Age, sex, geographical area, educational attainment, partnership status, depressive symptoms, and previous chronic diseases at baseline were used as covariates. We analyzed the associations with three-wave random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) and conducted age-stratified analysis among those younger versus older than 65 years. Full information maximum likelihood estimators were used to handle missing values in Waves 6-8 in the main analyses. We also conducted additional sensitivity analyses stratified by retirement status (retired vs. not) at baseline. At the within-person level, loneliness and cognitive performance were not associated with each other among those aged 50-64 years in the main time-lagged analysis. Among those aged ≥ 65 years, loneliness was associated with lower cognitive performance in the next wave in all four cognitive domains. In addition, lower verbal fluency predicted greater loneliness in the next waves among this age group. Similar patterns were found independently of retirement status at baseline. These results suggest that loneliness is a psychosocial risk factor for cognitive decline among older adults (≥ 65 years). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Older adults are faced with prescriptions to remain fit and socially engaged (active aging) or limit consumption of social resources (altruistic disengagement), and violations of these may result in backlash and marginalization. Despite such negative consequences that prescriptive views of aging (PVoA) may have for older adults, whether PVoA endorsement is modifiable is still to be examined. Thus, in our study, we investigated the malleability of PVoA endorsement. Further, we explored whether malleability of PVoA endorsement generalizes across specific age norms (active aging and altruistic disengagement), life domains (health and social), and targets (others and self). We conducted two preregistered experiments in which participants reflected on agreeing or disagreeing with PVoA. In Experiment 1, 536 adults (50-89 years) reflected on their personal agreement or disagreement with PVoA. In Experiment 2, 435 adults (50-87 years) reflected on agreement with PVoA in society. Reflecting on agreement changed endorsement of PVoA in both experiments: Participants who reflected on agreement reported higher endorsement of PVoA, whereas participants who reflected on disagreement reported lower endorsement. Our results indicated that the cognitive representation of PVoA is norm and domain specific: The endorsement effect did not transfer from active aging to altruistic disengagement (or vice versa) nor across health and social domains. Further, participants set the same prescriptions for their behavior as they set for others as shown by a transfer between endorsement of other- to self-related PVoA. Our findings attest to the complexity and specificity of PVoA and offer important insights for designing interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Views of aging predict key developmental outcomes. Less is known, however, about the consequences of constellations of domain-specific perceived gains and losses across the full adult lifespan. First, we explored levels of awareness of age-related gains (AARC-gains) and losses (AARC-losses) in five behavioral domains across adulthood. Second, we identified the number and types of profiles of AARC-gains and AARC-losses in young adulthood, midlife, young-old age, and old-old age. Third, we investigated whether the identified profiles differed in their associations with developmental correlates. Data came from the 2018 German Socio-Economic Panel Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS), comprising 403 young, 721 middle-aged, 260 young-old and 228 old-old individuals. We assessed AARC, physical and mental functioning, information processing speed, social relations, lifestyle, and engagement. At the sample level, AARC-losses were higher in old age, whereas AARC-gains did not differ across adulthood. Latent profile analyses revealed two distinguishable constellations of AARC-gains and AARC-losses that characterize young adulthood and old-old age, whereas four and three gains-to-losses constellations are needed to characterize midlife and young-old age, respectively. In middle, young-old, and old-old age, profiles with more AARC-losses were associated with poorer scores on all developmental correlates. Overall, study results suggest that age-related experiences are most diversified in midlife and young-old age. Asking individuals about their negative age-related experiences may help identify those individuals who are doing less well in important developmental correlates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

An active lifestyle has been associated with better cognitive performance in many studies. However, most studies have focused on leisure activities or paid work, with less consideration of the kind of prosocial activities, many people engage in, including volunteering, grandparenting, and family care. In the present study, based on four waves of the German Ageing Survey (N = 6,915, aged 40-85 at baseline), we used parallel growth curves to investigate the longitudinal association of level and change in volunteering, grandparenting, and family care with level and change in processing speed. Given the gendered nature of engagement in these activities over the life span, we tested for gender differences in the associations. Only volunteering was reliably associated with higher speed of processing at baseline, no consistent longitudinal associations were found. Our results show that although prosocial activities are of great societal importance, expectations of large rewards in terms of cognitive health may be exaggerated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Late-life hearing loss and vision loss might prompt more negative attitudes toward one's own aging because older adults may interpret impaired sensory functioning as a sign of aging. At the same time, more positive attitudes toward own aging might, via various mechanisms, be associated with better sensory functioning. We investigated how objective hearing and vision are associated with attitude toward own aging (ATOA) over time. Our sample comprised 497 participants from the Berlin Aging Study (mean baseline age: 85.15 years, SD = 8.58 years) who provided up to six observations over an average time span of 3.73 years (range 0-15 years). We computed longitudinal multilevel regression models, specifying vision, hearing, and age as within-person and between-person predictors of ATOA, and ATOA and age as between- and within-person predictors of vision and hearing. Covariates were sex, socioeconomic status, suspected dementia, chronic physical diseases, and depression. Significant within-person age effects indicated that vision and hearing declined over time, and ATOA became less favorable over time. At the between-person level, we found that participants with a more favorable ATOA exhibited better hearing, but not better vision, at baseline. Between-person associations of vision and hearing with ATOA were not significant. At the within-person level, there was only one significant effect across all models: On measurement occasions when individuals' vision was better, they also reported more favorable ATOA. This association was stronger among older individuals. Improving prevention and treatment of vision loss could thus help older adults to maintain positive views on their own aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Problems with memory, executive function, and language are a significant public health concern, especially when they begin during midlife. However, there is relatively little work on risk and protective factors for cognitive function in middle adulthood. Using data from 883 Mexican-origin adults assessed up to 6 times across 12 years (M_age at Time 1 = 38.2 years; range = 27-63 years), the present study examined whether developmental trajectories (levels and slopes) of Big Five personality domains and socioeconomic factors (per capita income, economic stress) were prospectively associated with cognitive function (memory, mental status, verbal fluency) at the final assessment. We found that individuals with higher levels of, and smaller decreases in, Neuroticism had worse cognitive function 12 years later. Further, individuals with higher initial Conscientiousness had better subsequent memory, mental status, and verbal fluency, and individuals with higher Openness and Extraversion had better subsequent verbal fluency (but not memory or mental status). The trajectories of per capita income and economic stress were robustly associated with cognitive function, such that higher initial levels and greater increases in socioeconomic resources had protective associations, whereas higher levels and greater increases in economic stress had deleterious associations with cognitive function. Higher education level was associated with better cognitive function 12 years later. These findings suggest that changes in personality and socioeconomic factors across adulthood are associated with cognitive function, which may be informative for interventions to support healthier cognitive aging starting at least as early as midlife. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).