Juil Rie

Age and gender differences in affect and subjective well‐being

Old age is often referred to as a period of life with multiple losses. The elderly may lose their spouses and friends, and their physical health and functioning decline. It seems difficult to maintain subjective wellbeing in old age. This perspective is well represented by the ‘Social Indicators Movement’. 1–4 It is assumed that sociodemographic and social structural variables, such as age, gender, marital status, and income, explains the differences in subjective well-being. Surprisingly, however, more recent work and empiric evidence generally suggest that subjective well-being is relatively stable until quite old age. 5–7 The absence of a strong relationship between age and subjective wellbeing, despite an increase in risks and losses with advancing age, has been known as the Paradox of Well-Being. Subjective well-being is a multidimensional concept, generally defined as life satisfaction, presence of positive affect, and absence of negative affect. 5,6 The relationship between subjective well-being and age can be best understood when examined separately by positive and negative affect and overall life satisfaction.

Effects of a Future Time Perspective–Based Career Intervention on Career Decisions:

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a future time perspective (FTP)-based career intervention on career decisions. The career intervention consisted of three sessions based on three factors of FTP: opportunity, value, and connectedness. The study was performed with 41 college students who were randomly assigned to the intervention group (N = 21) and the control group (N = 20). The intervention group showed higher levels of FTP, career decision-making self-efficacy, and career search self-efficacy at the posttest compared to the corresponding results of the control group. Furthermore, the results of a paired-samples t test showed that the effects of the career intervention were maintained at a 4-week follow-up. Lastly, the theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.

Haptic Perception of Rod Length When Exploration is Self-Determined, other-Determined, and Self-other Co-Determined:

Previous research has shown that when estimating accuracy of an object property like shape, haptic perception is better when exploration is active rather than passive. To further investigate this finding, participants estimated the length of a rod under differing exploration conditions: self-determined, other-determined, and self-other co-determined. During the self-determined exploration, participants moved their end of the rod while the experimenter held the other end of the rod stationary. During the other-determined exploration, the participant held the rod while the experimenter moved the other end. During the self-other co-determined exploration, both the participant and the experimenter moved the rod at the same time. It was hypothesized that judgments of rod length would be significantly more accurate in the self-determined condition than in the other two conditions. Participants were 10 students (6 men, 4 women; M age = 20.6 yr., SD = 1.8) who judged the lengths of five rods (30, 45, 60, 75, and 90 cm long) under the three exploration conditions. For rod length estimation accuracy, self-determined exploration was better than the other-determined or the self-other co-determined exploration. Superiority of self-determined exploration for judging rod lengths has three alternative explanations: (1) anatomical receptors involved in haptic perception, (2) intention to perceive a certain rod property, and (3) need for cognition.