Shannon T. Mejía

A Microlongitudinal Study of the Linkages Among Personality Traits, Self-Regulation, and Stress in Older Adults

Personality traits, goals, and perceived stress were examined in 99 older adults assessed via web-based surveys over 100 days to explore how traits influence self-regulation. Participants high in neuroticism made less social goal progress and those high in conscientiousness and extraversion made more health and social goal progress over the 100-day period. Stress interacted with traits, uncovering relationships between goal progress and stressful days not evident when examining just direct effects. This study provides empirical evidence for linkages in the six-foci model of personality that are consistent with the idea that trait structures can shape processes.

Capturing Intraindividual Variation and Covariation Constructs: Using Multiple Time-Scales to Assess Construct Reliability and Construct Stability

The growing empirical base of studies on intraindividual variability speaks to its increasing importance in understanding human development. Studying intraindividual variability by definition requires multiple measurement occasions (e.g., microlongitudinal assessment). Tracking how intraindividual variability changes over time requires that the microlongitudinal assessment protocol be conducted again at a later time. Extended microlongitudinal studies (e.g., 100+ occasions) provide unique opportunities to study how intraindividual variability changes over time (e.g., across months). In this study the authors parse data from the 100-day Personal Understanding of Life and Social Experiences (PULSE) Project into a multiple time-scale design (four 25-day time segments) to examine the measurement reliability and stability of a variety of intraindividual variation/covariation-based constructs. Results showed that (1) reliability and stability differ across intraindividual variability constructs; (2) lability was more state-like for optimism, and trait-like for affect and goal progress; (3) intraindividual covariation-based constructs are difficult to measure reliably; and (4) in some situations it is possible to track month-to-month change in intraindividual variability using multiple burst study designs. The authors conclude that extended microlongitudinal studies be further considered as multiple time-scale designs that can, when appropriately invoked, be used to measure intraindividual variability constructs and how they change over time.

Successful Aging as the Intersection of Individual Resources, Age, Environment, and Experiences of Well-being in Daily Activities

Objective We conceptualize successful aging as a cumulative index of individual resources (the absence of disease and disability, high cognitive and physical functioning, social embeddedness) in the service of successful aging outcomes (global well-being, experienced well-being, and vital status), and conditioned by age, social structure, and environment. Method The study used baseline and follow-up data from the 2008-2014 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 17,230; age = 51-101). Linear, multilevel, and logistic models compared individual resources at baseline as independent, cumulative, and binary predictors of outcomes 4 years later. Results Individual resources were unequally distributed across age group and social structures (education, wealth, race, gender) and had a cumulative effect on all successful aging outcomes. For experienced well-being, individual resources were most important at midlife and for groups with lower education. Person-environment congruence (social cohesion, city satisfaction) was associated with all successful aging outcomes and conditioned the effect of individual resources on experienced well-being. Discussion A cumulative index allows for gradations in resources that can be compensated for by external factors such as person-environment congruence. This index could guide policy and interventions to enhance resources in vulnerable subgroups and diminish inequalities in successful aging outcomes.

Social possible selves, self-regulation, and social goal progress in older adulthood

Lifespan development involves setting and pursuing self-guided goals. This study examines how in the social domain, possible selves, a future-oriented self-concept, and self-regulation, including self-regulatory beliefs and intraindividual variability in self-regulatory behavior, relate to differences in overall daily social goal progress. An online older-adult sample worked towards a self-defined meaningful social goal over 100 days. Multilevel analysis showed that participants with social possible selves made higher overall daily goal progress, especially those with both hoped-for and feared possible selves, than those with possible selves in nonsocial domains. Self-regulatory beliefs were positively whereas variability was negatively associated with overall daily goal progress. The findings suggest that possible selves, in combination with two distinct self-regulatory constructs, significantly guide social goal progress.

Social regulatory processes in later life: a web-based microlongitudinal study.

The goal for this study was to examine within-person processes driving individual development related to social goals. We examined how social regulatory processes travel together over time to understand whether daily social goal progress is sensitive to variation in experiences of support and hindrance and the extent to which maintenance or achievement goal orientation explains differences in sensitivity to social experiences. A sample of 105 adults over the age of 50 years chose an individually meaningful social goal to track over time, which they coded as achievement or maintenance oriented. Participants then reported their daily progress and experiences of support and hindrance toward that goal over a 100-day study period. We found social goal progress to positively covary with support and negatively covary with hindrance. These linkages, which we termed sensitivity, varied significantly across participants. This variation was partially explained by differences in goal orientation. Those with an achievement goal made lower goal progress and were more sensitive to support and less sensitive to hindrance than those with a maintenance-oriented goal. Our findings partially explain the processes by which older adults work toward their social goals. Daily goal progress is contingent on daily social experiences, but these sensitivities are in part shaped by goal orientation.

The Effects of Visualization Feedback on Promoting Health Goal Progress in Older Adults

Working towards and maintaining goals is closely tied to healthy aging, but aging researchers know little about how older adults work towards their meaningful goals on a daily basis. We conducted an internet-based microlongitudinal study (100 days, n=105) to examine factors that may affect older adults’ abilities to self-regulate health goals over time with a focus on the role of visualization feedback on promoting their progress. Our findings suggest that (1) older adults found visualization feedback helpful in maintaining an awareness of their health goal progress, and (2) visualization feedback weakens the positive relationship between the previous day’s progress and today’s progress, helping older adults bounce back from a poor progress day.

Gendered trajectories of support from close relationships from middle to late life

ABSTRACT This study investigates gender differences in trajectories of support from close relationships among adults in the transition from middle to old age, taking into account stability and change in the identity of the closest persons. Multi-level modelling was used to estimate gendered age-trajectories in three dimensions of support: emotional support, practical support and negative encounters, which were repeatedly measured over ten years amongst 6,718 Whitehall II participants. Men were more likely than women to nominate their partner as their closest person throughout follow-up; whereas women drew support from a wider range of sources. Gender differences were only evident in age-related trajectories of emotional support, and were contingent on stability and change in the closest relationships. Men reported increased emotional support from closest relationships with age, except for those who transitioned out of a partnership. For women, emotional support was stable among those whose closest person remained consistent, but decreased among those who changed their closest person. Further, emotional support increased with age for all married men, which was only the case for married women who nominated their partner as their closest person. Our analysis highlights gender-specific trajectories of perceived support from adults’ closest relationships in late life, and indicate more pronounced socio-emotional selectivity in older men than women.