Stacey B. Scott

Diurnal profiles of salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase change across the adult lifespan: Evidence from repeated daily life assessments

Salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase are known to have distinctive diurnal profiles. However, little is known about systematic changes in these biomarkers across the adult lifespan. In a study of 185 participants (aged 20-81 years), time-stamped salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase were collected 7 times/day over 10 days. Samples were taken upon waking, 30 min later, and then approximately every 3 h until 9 pm. Multilevel models showed that older age was associated with increased daily cortisol secretion as indicated by greater area under the curve, attenuated wake-evening slopes, and more pronounced cortisol awakening responses. Further, older age was related to greater daily alpha-amylase output and attenuated wake-evening slopes. No age differences were observed regarding the alpha-amylase awakening response. Our findings may contribute to a better understanding of age-related differences in functioning of stress-related systems.

Social Support in Widowhood: A Mixed Methods Study

Although social support is assumed to be an important factor following loss, the mechanisms by which it influences outcomes are not well understood. This study explored the nature of social support following loss using mixed methods. Widows participated in semistructured interviews 1 and 4 months after loss; a subsample completed 98 days of questionnaires between interviews. Interviews were analyzed using the constant comparative method; themes included the importance of supportive groups and the meaning of support. Social support trajectories were examined using hierarchical linear modeling; perceived social control explained differences in trajectories. Additional interviews were selected by their maximally divergent plots. The findings of these analyses were integrated to contribute a more detailed description of social support in the transition to widowhood.

A Lifespan Perspective on Terrorism: Age Differences in Trajectories of Response to 9/11.

A terrorist attack is an adverse event characterized by both an event-specific stressor and concern about future threats. Little is known about age differences in responses to terrorism. This longitudinal study examined generalized distress, posttraumatic stress responses, and fear of future attacks following the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks among a large U.S. national sample of adults (N = 2,240) aged 18-101 years. Individuals completed Web-based surveys up to 6 times over 3 years post 9/11. Multilevel models revealed different age-related patterns for distress, posttraumatic stress, and ongoing fear of future attacks. Specifically, older age was associated with lower overall levels of general distress, a steeper decline in posttraumatic stress over time, and less change in fear of future terrorist attacks over the 3 years. Understanding age differences in response to the stress of terrorism adds to the growing body of work on age differences in reactions to adversity.

Eating behaviors and negative affect in college women's everyday lives

OBJECTIVE A growing body of research seeks to understand the relationship between mood and eating behaviors. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) methods provide a method for assessing these processes in natural settings. We used EMA to examine the relationship between mood and eating behaviors in everyday life among women with subclinical disordered eating behaviors. METHOD Participants (N = 127, age M = 19.6 years, BMI M = 25.5) completed five daily EMA reports on palmtop computers for 1 week. Assessments included measures of negative affect (NA) and eating-related behavior during eating (eating large amounts of food, loss of control over eating, and restricting food intake) and noneating episodes (skip eating to control weight/shape). Time-lagged multilevel models tested mood-eating behavior relationships. RESULTS Higher NA did not precede any unhealthy eating and weight control behaviors. However, NA was higher when women reported eating large quantities of food, losing control over eating, and restricting food intake during their most recent eating episode, but not after skipping eating to control weight/shape. DISCUSSION These findings elucidate the processes in daily life that may influence the development and maintenance of unhealthy eating and weight control behaviors that, in turn, can inform interventions.

Age, stress, and emotional complexity: Results from two studies of daily experiences.

Experiencing positive and negative emotions together (i.e., co-occurrence) has been described as a marker of positive adaptation during stress and a strength of socioemotional aging. Using data from daily diary (N = 2,022; ages 33-84) and ecological momentary assessment (N = 190; ages 20-80) studies, we evaluate the utility of a common operationalization of co-occurrence, the within-person correlation between positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Then we test competing predictions regarding when co-occurrence will be observed and whether age differences will be present. Results indicate that the correlation is not an informative indicator of co-occurrence. Although correlations were stronger and more negative when stressors occurred (typically interpreted as lower co-occurrence), objective counts of emotion reports indicated that positive and negative emotions were 3 to 4 times more likely to co-occur when stressors were reported. This suggests that co-occurrence reflects the extent to which negative emotions intrude on typically positive emotional states, rather than the extent to which people maintain positive emotions during stress. The variances of both PA and NA increased at stressor reports, indicating that individuals reported a broader not narrower range of emotion during stress. Finally, older age was associated with less variability in NA and a lower likelihood of co-occurring positive and negative emotions. In sum, these findings cast doubt on the utility of the PA-NA correlation as an index of emotional co-occurrence, and question notion that greater emotional co-occurrence represents either a typical or adaptive emotional state in adults.

What contributes to perceived stress in later life? A recursive partitioning approach.

One possible explanation for the individual differences in outcomes of stress is the diversity of inputs that produce perceptions of being stressed. The current study examines how combinations of contextual features (e.g., social isolation, neighborhood quality, health problems, age discrimination, financial concerns, and recent life events) of later life contribute to overall feelings of stress. Recursive partitioning techniques (regression trees and random forests) were used to examine unique interrelations between predictors of perceived stress in a sample of 282 community-dwelling adults. Trees provided possible examples of equifinality (i.e., subsets of people with similar levels of perceived stress but different predictors) as well as identification both of contextual combinations that separated participants with very high and very low perceived stress. Random forest analyses aggregated across many trees based on permuted versions of the data and predictors; loneliness, financial strain, neighborhood strain, ageism, and to some extent life events emerged as important predictors. Interviews with a subsample of participants provided both thick description of the complex relationships identified in the trees, as well as additional risks not appearing in the survey results. Together, the analyses highlight what may be missed when stress is used as a simple unidimensional construct and can guide differential intervention efforts.

Global Perceived Stress Predicts Cognitive Change among Older Adults

Research on stress and cognitive aging has primarily focused on examining the effects of biological and psychosocial indicators of stress, with little attention provided to examining the association between perceived stress and cognitive aging. We examined the longitudinal association between global perceived stress (GPS) and cognitive change among 116 older adults (M(age) = 80, SD = 6.40, range = 67-96) in a repeated measurement burst design. Bursts of 6 daily cognitive assessments were repeated every 6 months over a 2-year period, with self-reported GPS assessed at the start of every burst. Using a double-exponential learning model, 2 parameters were estimated: (a) asymptotic level (peak performance), and (b) asymptotic change (the rate at which peak performance changed across bursts). We hypothesized that greater GPS would predict slowed performance in tasks of attention, working memory, and speed of processing and that increases in GPS across time would predict cognitive slowing. Results from latent growth curve analyses were consistent with our first hypothesis and indicated that level of GPS predicted cognitive slowing across time. Changes in GPS did not predict cognitive slowing. This study extends previous findings by demonstrating a prospective association between level of GPS and cognitive slowing across a 2-year period, highlighting the role of psychological stress as a risk factor for poor cognitive function.

Age Differences in Negative Emotional Responses to Daily Stressors Depend on Time since Event.

Research on age differences in the experience of negative emotional states have produced inconsistent results, particularly when emotion is examined in the context of daily stress. Strength and vulnerability integration (SAVI; Charles, 2010) theory postulates that age differences in emotional states are contingent upon whether a stressor occurred, and whether sufficient time has passed since the stressor to allow older adults to benefit from theorized strengths. The present study uses an ecological momentary assessment design to examine how timing of daily stressors relates to age differences in negative emotional responses. Participants (N = 199, aged 25–65) completed mobile surveys up to 5 times daily for 14 days. They reported current mood and stressor exposure, as well as how long ago the stressor occurred. As expected, no age differences were observed in current negative affect (NA) for stressors which occurred in the previous 0–10 min. As predicted, older age was associated with less of a stressor-related increase in NA when a greater time had passed (i.e., 10 min to 2.5 hours) since stressor exposure. Consistent with previous results, there were no age differences in the effects of more distal stressors that occurred 2.5 to 5 hr ago, although NA remained significantly elevated. The present findings are consistent with SAVI’s predictions and advance understanding age differences in the time course relating everyday stressors to emotional responses.

Adversity, time, and well-being: A longitudinal analysis of time perspective in adulthood.

Despite the prominence of time in influential aging theories and the ubiquity of stress across the life span, research addressing how time perspective (TP) and adversity are associated with well-being across adulthood is rare. Examining the role of TP in coping with life events over the life span would be best accomplished after large-scale population-based exposure to a specific event, with repeated assessments to examine within- and between-person differences over time. A national sample aged 18-91 years (N = 722, M = 49.4 years) was followed for 3 years after the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks. Respondents completed assessments of 9/11-related television (TV) exposure 9-21 days after the attacks, temporal disintegration 2 months post-9/11, and TP, ongoing stress, and well-being at 12, 24, and 36 months post-9/11. Results provided support for measurement invariance of TP across time and across age. Early 9/11-related TV exposure was significantly associated with greater temporal disintegration. Temporal disintegration and ongoing stress, in turn, were associated with between- and within-person variation in past TP. This effect was qualified by an age interaction that indicated a stronger relationship between ongoing stress and past TP for younger compared with older adults. Past and future TP were significantly and independently related to individual differences and within-person variation in psychological well-being, regardless of age. Future work should incorporate adversity as an important correlate of TP across adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record

How We Experience Being Alone: Age Differences in Affective and Biological Correlates of Momentary Solitude

Background: Spending time alone constitutes a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. As we get older, alone time increases. Less is known, however, about age differences in the experience of spending time alone (momentary solitude). Objectives: We examined time-varying associations between momentary solitude, affect quality, and two hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity markers [salivary cortisol; dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAs)] to better understand the affective and biological correlates of momentary solitude across the adult life span. Method: A total of 185 adults aged 20-81 years (mean age = 49 years, 51% female, 74% Caucasian) completed questionnaires on momentary solitude (alone vs. not alone) and current affect on a handheld device, and provided concurrent saliva samples up to seven times a day for 10 consecutive days. Data were analyzed using multilevel models, controlling for the overall amount of time participants spent alone during the study (overall solitude). Results: Greater overall solitude was associated with decreased average high arousal positive affect and increased average cortisol and DHEAs levels. Momentary solitude was associated with reduced high arousal positive affect, increased low arousal positive affect, and increased low arousal negative affect. Age by momentary solitude interactions indicate that greater age was associated with increased high arousal positive affect and reduced low arousal negative affect during momentary solitude. Furthermore, momentary solitude was associated with increased cortisol and DHEAs. With greater age, the association between momentary solitude and cortisol weakened. Conclusion: Consistent with the negative connotations to loneliness and objective social isolation, greater overall solitude was associated with negative affective and biological correlates. Spending a large overall amount of time alone in old age might thus have negative ramifications for health and well-being. Momentary solitude, in contrast, can be a double-edged sword as evidenced by both positive and negative well-being implications. Importantly, greater age is linked to more favorable affective and biological correlates of momentary solitude. The momentary state of spending time alone is thus an experience that is not necessarily negative and that may improve with aging.