Understanding Age Differences in Well-Being: Pathways From Present Time Orientation to Mindfulness and Savoring the Moment.

Well-being has been shown to improve with age, but underlying mechanisms are unclear. We tested a conceptual model that posited that age-related increases in present time orientation foster greater dispositional mindfulness and savoring the moment, and that these psychological processes are pathways that link older age to better well-being. U.

Aging and Emotional Well-Being After Disasters: Vulnerability and Resilience.

Background And Objectives: Climate change threatens well-being and has increased the prevalence of weather-related disasters. We investigated age differences in emotional well-being among adults who had experienced hurricane-related, unavoidable stressors. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) posits that age-related motivational shifts buffer older adults against psychological distress, whereas the strength and vulnerability integration model (SAVI) posits that unavoidable stressors are more detrimental to older adults' well-being compared to younger adults.

Age differences in social decision-making preferences and perceived ability.

Decision-making often occurs in a social context but is typically studied as if it were an individualistic process. In the present study, we investigated the relationships between age, perceived decision-making ability, and self-rated health with preferences for social decision-making, or making decisions with others. Adults ( = 1,075; ages 18-93) from an U.

Age differences in psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic: March 2020 - June 2021.

In March 2020, COVID-19 brought illness, lockdowns, and economic turmoil worldwide. Studies from March-April 2020 reported increased psychological distress, especially among younger (vs. older) adults.

Psychological health benefits of focusing on the 'here and now' versus a limited future during the COVID-19 pandemic.

College students' psychological health has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., 1).

Perceived Social Norms Guide Health Care Decisions for Oneself and Others: A Cross-Sectional Experiment in a US Online Panel.

Background: Global aging has increased the reliance on surrogates to make health care decisions for others. We investigated the differences between making health care decisions and predicting health care decisions, self-other differences for made and predicted health care decisions, and the roles of perceived social norms, emotional closeness, empathy, age, and gender.

Methods: Participants ( = 2037) from a nationally representative US panel were randomly assigned to make or to predict a health care decision.

Benefits of Experience and Knowledge for Older Adults' Monetary Sequence Preferences.

Financial literacy and financial experience may be important for understanding age differences in financial decisionmaking. Older adults generally have more financial experience than younger adults do, and some studies suggest they also have better financial literacy. We investigated associations among age ( = 594, aged 20-88, = 46.

Age differences in risk taking: now you see them, now you don't.

Older age has often, but not always, been associated with less risk taking. Inconsistencies may be due to diversity in the risk-taking measures used and/or individual differences in cognitive abilities. We investigated the robustness of age differences in risk taking across three measures, and tested whether age differences in risk taking remained after accounting for cognitive abilities.

Risk and protective factors for college students' psychological health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

College students' psychological health may be compromised due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we aimed to identify risk (eg, perceived risk of contracting COVID-19) and protective factors (ie, social support, mindfulness) for positive (ie, subjective happiness, satisfaction with life) and negative (ie, depression, anxiety, stress) aspects of psychological health. Participants were 251 college students at a mid-Atlantic university.

Knowing you are there makes the difference: perceived social support, preferences for using support, and health.

Using cluster analysis, we investigated whether perceived social support and individual differences in preferences to use support combined to form distinct profiles. Self-report data were collected from U.S.

What would people think? Perceived social norms, willingness to serve as a surrogate, and end-of-life treatment decisions.

Background: Population aging has increased the prevalence of surrogate decision making in healthcare settings. However, little is known about factors contributing to the decision to become a surrogate and the surrogate medical decision-making process in general. We investigated how intrapersonal and social-contextual factors predicted two components of the surrogate decision-making process: individuals' willingness to serve as a surrogate and their tendency to select various end-of-life treatments, including mechanical ventilation and palliative care options.

Don't Risk It. Older Adults Perceive Fewer Future Opportunities and Avoid Social Risk Taking.

Drawing from life-span psychology, we conducted two studies to test perceptions of time left in the future as an underlying mechanism for age differences in self-reported social risk taking. Study 1 included 120 younger (25-35 years) and 119 older (60-91 years) community-dwelling adults. Study 2 included 439 participants (18-85 years) mostly recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Age differences in reported social networks and well-being.

Social networks can consist of close friends, family members, and neighbors as well as peripheral others. Studies of social networks and associations with well-being have mostly focused on age-restricted samples of older adults or specific geographic areas, thus limiting their generalizability. We analyzed 2 online surveys conducted with RAND's American Life Panel, a national adult life span sample recruited through multiple probability-based approaches.

Restricting future time perspective reduces failure to act after a missed opportunity.

Inaction inertia occurs when missing an attractive opportunity (vs. not having been offered it) decreases the likelihood of acting on another similar opportunity. We experimentally manipulated future time perspective to reduce inaction inertia.

Age differences in emotional responses to monetary losses and gains.

People of all ages face events that threaten their well-being, but theories of aging posit that older adults will cope better. In a gamble with randomly assigned losses (vs. gains), older adults reported relatively less negative and more positive emotions than younger adults, especially after losses (vs.

Taking the Biggest First: Age Differences in Preferences for Monetary and Hedonic Sequences.

Objectives: People face decisions about how to sequence payments and events, including when to schedule bigger events relative to smaller ones. We examine age differences in these sequence preferences.

Methods: We gave a national adult life-span sample (n = 1,296, mean = 53.

Effects of Anti- Versus Pro-Vaccine Narratives on Responses by Recipients Varying in Numeracy: A Cross-sectional Survey-Based Experiment.

Background: To inform their health decisions, patients may seek narratives describing other patients' evaluations of their treatment experiences. Narratives can provide anti-treatment or pro-treatment evaluative meaning that low-numerate patients may especially struggle to derive from statistical information. Here, we examined whether anti-vaccine (v.

What were they thinking? Reducing sunk-cost bias in a life-span sample.

We tested interventions to reduce "sunk-cost bias," the tendency to continue investing in failing plans even when those plans have soured and are no longer rewarding. We showed members of a national U.S.

Living longer with help from others: Seeking advice lowers mortality risk.

Associations between self-sufficiency and advice seeking with mortality risk were examined to assess the long-term implications of individualistic and interpersonally oriented strategies. Wave 1 participants from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States ( N = 6116, 25-75 years, M = 46.38 years) completed questionnaires assessing demographics, self-sufficiency, advice seeking, social support, and health.

Understanding Adult Age Differences in the Frequency of Problems With Friends.

We investigated characteristics of younger and older adults' friendships. Younger (N = 39) and older (N = 39) adults completed measures pertaining to a specific friend they had (i.e.

Hour glass half full or half empty? Future time perspective and preoccupation with negative events across the life span.

According to socioemotional selectivity theory, older adults' emotional well-being stems from having a limited future time perspective that motivates them to maximize well-being in the "here and now." Presumably, then, older adults' time horizons are associated with emotional competencies that boost positive affect and dampen negative affect, but little research has addressed this. Using a U.

Choosing to be happy? Age differences in "maximizing" decision strategies and experienced emotional well-being.

Maximizing is a decision strategy that seeks the very best option, which is more elaborate and potentially more regret inducing than choosing an option that is "good enough." In surveys with a large national sample, we find that older adults are less likely than younger adults to self-report maximizing, which is associated with their better experienced well-being reported 2 years later. This pattern holds after controlling for demographic characteristics and negative life events.

New perspectives for motivating better decisions in older adults.

Decision-making competence in later adulthood is affected by declines in cognitive skills, and age-related changes in affect and experience can sometimes compensate. However, recent findings suggest that age-related changes in motivation also affect the extent to which adults draw from experience, affect, and deliberative skills when making decisions. To date, relatively little attention has been given to strategies for addressing age-related changes in motivation to promote better decisions in older adults.

Variations in Decision-Making Profiles by Age and Gender: A Cluster-Analytic Approach.

Using cluster-analysis, we investigated whether rational, intuitive, spontaneous, dependent, and avoidant styles of decision making (Scott & Bruce, 1995) combined to form distinct decision-making profiles that differed by age and gender. Self-report survey data were collected from 1,075 members of RAND's American Life Panel (56.2% female, 18-93 years, age = 53.