Health,Finances, Religious Involvement,and Life Satisfaction of Older Adults

ABSTRACT

This study examines the patterns and relationships between twelve independent variables and the expressed subjective well-being of older adults within that classic community setting of the Lynds' “Middletown.” The twelve variables include measures of church attendance, religious activity, religious conservatism/liberalism, subjective health status, social participation, importance of leisure, participation in physical activity, age, sex, marital status, and level of education.     

Physical,Psychological and Social Adaptation of African American Nuns to Their Religious Communities as They Age: Implications for Aging in Place

ABSTRACT

This study examined the association between health status, stress, depression, satisfaction with the relationship with the religious community, alienation from significant persons, racial/cultural identity and “aging in place,” as measured by length of time in the same religious community, for a purposive sample of 72 African American nuns. Aging in place was significantly associated with perceptions of better health status, less stress and depression and greater satisfaction with relationships with the religious community. However, the study also found that the longer the nuns lived in their respective communities, the less racially/culturally identified they became. These findings underscore the need for finding ways to keep nuns in their religious communities as they age and to provide avenues of racial/cultural expression for African American nuns.     

Experiential Avoidance as an Emotion Regulatory Function: An Empirical Analysis of Experiential Avoidance in Relation to Behavioral Avoidance,Cognitive Reappraisal,and Response Suppression

The purpose of the present study was to empirically test the suggestion that experiential avoidance in an emotion regulation context is best understood as an emotion regulatory function of topographically distinct strategies. To do this we examined whether a measure of experiential avoidance could statistically account for the effects of emotion regulation strategies intervening at different points of the emotion-generative process as conceptualized by Gross' (1998) process model of emotion regulation. The strategies under examination were behavioral avoidance, cognitive reappraisal, and response suppression. The specific hypotheses to be tested were (1) that behavioral avoidance, cognitive reappraisal, and response suppression would statistically mediate the differences in measures of psychological well-being between a clinical and nonclinical sample, but that (2) these indirect effects would be reduced to nonsignificant levels when controlling for differences in experiential avoidance. The results provide clear support for the first hypothesis with regard to all the studied strategies. In contrast to the second hypothesis, the results showed the predicted outcome pattern only for the response-focused strategy “response suppression” and not for cognitive reappraisal or behavioral avoidance. The results are interpreted and discussed in relation to theories on experiential avoidance and emotion regulation.     

Replication and Extension of a Hierarchical Model of Social Anxiety and Depression: Fear of Positive Evaluation as a Key Unique Factor in Social Anxiety

Wang, Hsu, Chiu, and Liang (2012, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26, 215–224) recently proposed a hierarchical model of social interaction anxiety and depression to account for both the commonalities and distinctions between these conditions. In the present paper, this model was extended to more broadly encompass the symptoms of social anxiety disorder, and replicated in a large unselected, undergraduate sample (n = 585). Structural equation modeling (SEM) and hierarchical regression analyses were employed. Negative affect and positive affect were conceptualized as general factors shared by social anxiety and depression; fear of negative evaluation (FNE) and disqualification of positive social outcomes were operationalized as specific factors, and fear of positive evaluation (FPE) was operationalized as a factor unique to social anxiety. This extended hierarchical model explicates structural relationships among these factors, in which the higher-level, general factors (i.e., high negative affect and low positive affect) represent vulnerability markers of both social anxiety and depression, and the lower-level factors (i.e., FNE, disqualification of positive social outcomes, and FPE) are the dimensions of specific cognitive features. Results from SEM and hierarchical regression analyses converged in support of the extended model. FPE is further supported as a key symptom that differentiates social anxiety from depression.     

Cognitive reappraisal and secondary control coping: associations with working memory,positive and negative affect,and symptoms of anxiety/depression

Abstract

The current study examined the relations of measures of cognitive reappraisal and secondary control coping with working memory abilities, positive and negative affect, and symptoms of anxiety and depression in young adults (N=124). Results indicate significant relations between working memory abilities and reports of secondary control coping and between reports of secondary control coping and cognitive reappraisal. Associations were also found between measures of secondary control coping and cognitive reappraisal and positive and negative affect and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Further, the findings suggest that reports of cognitive reappraisal may be more strongly predictive of positive affect whereas secondary control coping may be more strongly predictive of negative affect and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Overall, the results suggest that current measures of secondary control coping and cognitive reappraisal capture related but distinct constructs and suggest that the assessment of working memory may be more strongly related to secondary control coping in predicting individual differences in distress.     

Perceived stress and everyday memory complaints among older adult women

Abstract

Memory complaints among older adults are often influenced by depression and anxiety, but the association of stress to memory complaints has received little attention. We examined the associations of perceived stress, life events, and activity level to everyday memory complaints among healthy older women, while controlling for the influence of depression and anxiety. Participants (N=54) completed self-report questionnaires on memory complaints, perceived stress, recent life events, activity level, depression, and anxiety. Partial correlation analyses indicated that higher levels of perceived stress were associated with higher levels of memory complaints when controlling for the influence of depression and anxiety, but that life events and activity level were not related to memory complaints. This study highlights that perceived stress, like depression and anxiety, is a psychological factor that influences the appraisal of cognitive ability; however, larger and more heterogeneous samples will be needed to better understand the multifactorial nature of memory complaints in older adulthood.     

The protective role of compassion satisfaction for therapists who work with sexual violence survivors: an application of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions

Therapists who work with trauma survivors, such as survivors of sexual violence, can experience compassion satisfaction while experiencing negative effects of trauma work, such as secondary traumatic stress. We examined whether the negative effects of secondary traumatic stress on therapist adjustment would be buffered by compassion satisfaction and whether the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions could be applied to examine the factors (positive emotions and positive reframing) that relate to compassion satisfaction. Sixty-one therapists who work with sexual violence survivors completed measures of secondary traumatic stress, compassion satisfaction, adjustment, positive emotions and positive reframing. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses found that compassion satisfaction buffered the negative impact of secondary traumatic stress on therapist adjustment when adjustment was conceptualised as anxiety. Using non-parametric bootstrapping, we found that the relationship between greater positive emotions and greater compassion satisfaction was partially mediated by positive reframing. The findings indicate that compassion satisfaction is likely to be helpful in ameliorating the negative effects of secondary traumatic stress on anxiety in therapists who work with sexual violence survivors and that the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions may provide a strong theoretical basis for the further examination of compassion satisfaction in trauma therapists.     

Gender Differences and Cognition Among Older Adults

The more replicated findings about gender difference in cognitive performance suggest female superiority on visuomotor speed and language ability and male superiority on mechanical and visuospatial tasks. Generally, group strengths found in the early school years become more established at adolescence and remain stable through adulthood. The current study tested whether the patterns established in the early years remained among 30 adult subjects. We also utilized a series of exploratory analyses to determine if observed gender differences were impacted by the covariance present between all cognitive tests. Results suggest that although the patterns established in the early years remain stable through time for males, the established patterns for females are altered with age. Our findings are compelling in supporting a male advantage on visuospatial tasks among older adults. These findings are discussed in terms of common variance between test instruments as a possible source of difference. Our finding that the gender effect tended to increase when common variance was controlled argues that this methodology may enhance the ability to detect domain specific effects.     

The role of prior knowledge in error correction for younger and older adults

Previous work has demonstrated that, when given feedback, younger adults are more likely to correct high-confidence errors compared with low-confidence errors, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Research examining the hypercorrection effect in both older and younger adults has demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults. However, recent work suggests that error correction is largely related to prior knowledge, while confidence may primarily serve as a proxy for prior knowledge. Prior knowledge generally remains stable or increases with age; thus, the current experiment explored how both confidence and prior knowledge contributed to error correction in younger and older adults. Participants answered general knowledge questions, rated how confident they were that their response was correct, received correct answer feedback, and rated their prior knowledge of the correct response. Overall, confidence was related to error correction for younger adults, but this relationship was much smaller for older adults. However, prior knowledge was strongly related to error correction for both younger and older adults. Confidence alone played little unique role in error correction after controlling for the role of prior knowledge. These data demonstrate that prior knowledge largely predicts error correction and suggests that both older and younger adults can use their prior knowledge to effectively correct errors in memory.