Singing together in the park: Older peoples’ wellbeing and the singingscape in Guangzhou,China

The importance of adapting to later life is becoming increasingly apparent to older people as their concerns about health and wellbeing grow. Based on extensive fieldwork between 2020 and 2021 in Guangzhou, China, with older people who consider “singing together in the park” as an essential and popular everyday leisure activity, this article demonstrates how subject (older people), activity (singing), and place (park) integrate into a therapeutic space, the singingscape. Singingscape is presented in three distinct aspects: on the physical level, singingscape indicates an essential embodied experience of the connection between internal body and external environment, from which the older people can relax physically and mentally and acquire a sense of wellbeing; on the social level, singingscape fosters a positive atmosphere, where older people gain a collective sense of belonging and maintain social rhythm and social interactions with their peers; and on the imagined space level, fanciful landscapes and emotional imagination are advantageous to the wellbeing of older people. In the conceptual sense we argue that singingscape is located, experienced and integrated. Lastly, we advocate that attention should be paid to the construction of urban public spaces as vital infrastructure for older people in their everyday leisure activities.     

What are the Marital Problems of Happy Couples? A Multimethod,Two-Sample Investigation

How couples handle marital conflict may depend on what issues they are facing, as some issues may be more difficult to resolve than others. What is unclear, however, is what issues happy couples face and how these issues may be different for couples depending on their developmental stage. To explore this possibility, the current study used both self-reports and observations drawn from two separate samples of happily married couples—one early in middle adulthood (N = 57 couples; average marital duration = 9 years) and one in older adulthood (N = 64 couples; average marital duration = 42 years). Results indicated that all issues were relatively minor, but early middle-aged couples reported more significant problems than did older couples. As to determining the most salient topic for happy couples, it depended on the spouses’ gender, developmental stage, and how salience was assessed (i.e., highest rated issue vs. most discussed issue). Only moderate links were found between what happy couples said was their most serious concern and what they actually tried to resolve during observations of marital problem-solving, but there were differences in how spouses behaved based on the proportion of their time discussing certain topics. Findings suggest that more attention should be devoted to understanding what marital issues happy couples discuss and why, as doing so may reveal how couples maintain their marital happiness.     

The utility of psychological measures in evaluating perceived usability of automated vehicle interfaces – A study with older adults

The design of the traditional vehicle human-machine interfaces (HMIs) is undergoing major change as we move towards fully connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). Given the diversity of user requirements and preferences, it is vital for designers to gain a deeper understanding of any underlying factors that could impact usability. The current study employs a range of carefully selected psychological measures to investigate the relationship with self-report usability of an in-CAV HMI integrated into a fully automated Level 5 simulator, during simulated journeys. Twenty-five older adults (65-years+) participated and were exposed to four journeys in a virtual reality fully automated CAV simulator (with video recorded journeys) into which our HMI was integrated. Participants completed a range of scales and questionnaires, as well as computerized cognitive tests. Key measures were: perceived usability of the HMI, cognitive performance, personality, attitudes towards computers, trust in technology, simulator sickness, presence and emotion. HMI perceived usability correlated positively with cognitive performance (e.g., working memory) and some individual characteristics such as trust in technology and negatively with neuroticism anxiety. Simulator sickness was associated negatively with CAV HMI perceived usability. Positive emotions correlated positively with reported usability across all four journeys, while negative emotions were negatively associated with usability only in the case of the last two journeys. Increased sense of presence in the virtual CAV simulator was not associated with usability. Implications for design are critically discussed. Our research is highly relevant in the design of high-fully automated vehicle HMIs, particularly for older adults, and in informing policy-makers and automated mobility providers of how to improve older people’s uptake of this technology.     

At a Crossroad: Standing Still and Moving Forward

Reading the article, "Community psychology at the crossroads: Prospects for interdisciplinary research" (Maton, Perkins & Saegert, this issue), there is a sense that community psychology is at a crossroad with regard to being an interdisciplinary field. This paper aims to offer insight and guidance to proponents of interdisciplinary research in the community psychology field by drawing on experiences in urban studies, which shares similar origins and interdisciplinary claims.     

Capitalizing on the Benefits of Utilizing Part-Time Employees Through Job Autonomy

There are over 20 million part-time employees in the United States, however research on part-time employees is quite limited. Research has revealed inconsistencies when comparing part-time and full-time employees on various job outcomes (e.g., performance, commitment). As a test of Feldman's (1990) causal model of part-time work, this study provides evidence that autonomy mediates the relationship between job status (part-time vs. full-time) and such outcomes, which can help explain some of the inconsistencies in previous research. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Workaholism Among Japanese Blue-Collar Employees

A survey study was conducted in order to examine the hypothesis that workaholism may be a mode of adapting to a stressful work environment. A questionnaire was distributed to members of the Japan Federation of Automobile Workers' Unions in Japan. A total of 4,621 workers (4,083 men, 509 women, 29 unidentified) returned usable data (response rate = 71.9%). The results of a correlation analysis indicated that work overload-quantity and work overload-quality had significantly positive relations with Driven and little or no significant relations with Enjoyment of work. Blue-collar employees who work in highly structured and controlled environments were less likely to be workaholic than white-collar employees (in particular those in sales divisions). The results of ANOVA indicated that work overload had different effects on workaholism by age groups among blue-collar employees. It was found that work overload increased the degree of Driven and Enjoyment of work for those under 34 years old and it increased Driven and decreased Enjoyment of work for those over 35 years old.     

家庭居住与机构居住老年人社会支持的比较研究

以65位家庭居住和92位机构居住的老年人为样本,采用Sherbourne和Stewart的MOS社会支持问卷和自编社会支持问卷调查了老年人的社会支持现状,比较了家庭居住与机构居住老年人社会支持的不同特点。结果发现：（1）家庭居住和机构居住老年人在社会支持维度上存在显著差异：在心理支持、行为支持、活动支持等维度上,机构居住的老年人显著高于家庭居住的老年人;而在感情支持维度上家庭居住的老年人显著高于机构居住的老年人。（2）社会支持对老年人的身心健康具有显著影响。（3）性别,年龄,教育水平,职业状况,婚姻状况,子女数量,健在兄弟姐妹数量等人口统计变量对不同居住背景老年人的社会支持有显著影响。     

The association of physical activity to neural adaptability during visuo-spatial processing in healthy elderly adults: A multiscale entropy analysis

Physical activity has been shown to benefit brain and cognition in late adulthood. However, this effect is still unexplored in terms of brain signal complexity, which reflects the level of neural adaptability and efficiency during cognitive processing that cannot be acquired via averaged neuroelectric signals. Here we employed multiscale entropy analysis (MSE) of electroencephalography (EEG), a new approach that conveys important information related to the temporal dynamics of brain signal complexity across multiple time scales, to reveal the association of physical activity with neural adaptability and efficiency in elderly adults. A between-subjects design that included 24 participants (aged 66.63 ± 1.31 years; female = 12) with high physical activity and 24 age- and gender-matched low physical activity participants (aged 67.29 ± 1.20 years) was conducted to examine differences related to physical activity in performance and MSE of EEG signals during a visuo-spatial cognition task. We observed that physically active elderly adults had better accuracy on both visuo-spatial attention and working memory conditions relative to their sedentary counterparts. Additionally, these physically active elderly adults displayed greater MSE values at larger time scales at the Fz electrode in both attention and memory conditions. The results suggest that physical activity may be beneficial for adaptability of brain systems in tasks involving visuo-spatial information. MSE thus might be a promising approach to test the effects of the benefits of exercise on cognition.     

The fight against prejudice in older adults: perspective taking effectiveness

Inhibition of prejudice appears to be more problematic for older adults, hence the need to develop programs to reduce intergroup bias at later stages in life. Perspective taking was analyzed in this study, as one of various cognitive strategies that have been shown to reduce such bias. Data on a sample of 63 Spanish participants with a mean age of 64.1 years was gathered after an intervention based on mental imagery, aimed at reducing explicit prejudice. A wide array of variables was measured (personality traits, values, empathy, and attribution) which may moderate effectiveness in perspective taking. Despite no main effect was found, effects due to interaction of perspective taking found in OLS regression analysis revealed that perspective taking based intervention was effective for some older adults, particularly those who had low scores on agreeableness, empathy, and universalism, and high scores on conformity. The conclusions suggest that perspective taking might be successfully applied to some profiles of older people albeit it is not as strong and transferable strategy as it used to be thought.