Love and Imitation: Facial Mimicry and Relationship Satisfaction in Younger and Older Couples.

Objectives: Social mimicry, the imitation of one's conversation partner, is associated with empathy, liking, and affiliation. Because previous research has mainly focused on young adulthood and zero acquaintances, little is known about age differences in mimicry and its role in romantic relationships.

Methods: In this study, 37 younger and 41 older couples talked about an ongoing problem faced by one of the partners while being video-recorded.

For a better me? Or for a better us? Perceived utilities of aging preparatory activities and positive future thinking in Germany, USA and Hong Kong.

Engaging in aging preparatory activities that is perceived to be utile for oneself (e.g., to retain autonomy and independence) and for others (e.

A trouble shared is a trouble halved: Age differences in emotional experience and expression during couples' conversations.

Although emotional experience and expression are strongly tied to social contexts, most age-comparative studies have used an individualistic approach. The few dyadic laboratory studies that exist have focused on discussions about conflicts and have suggested that older couples experience and express less negative emotion than younger couples. However, recent studies have emphasized the context dependency of age differences in emotional reactivity.

Perceived reciprocity and relationship satisfaction: Age and relationship category matter.

Past work suggests that perceived reciprocity in social relationships declines with age. Although positive associations between perceived reciprocity and relationship satisfaction have been documented, relationship satisfaction seems to remain relatively stable over the life-span. Addressing this seemingly contradictory pattern of findings, we predicted that perceived reciprocity may become less important to relationship satisfaction with age and that this association differs across various relationship categories (i.

A three-component model of future time perspective across adulthood.

Although extensive findings underscore the relevance of future time perspective (FTP) in the process of aging, the assumption of FTP as a unifactorial construct has been challenged. The present study explores the factorial structure of the FTP scale (Carstensen & Lang, 1996) as one of the most widely used measures (Ntotal = 2,170). Results support that FTP reflects a higher-order construct that consists of 3 interrelated components-Opportunity, Extension, and Constraint.

Age differences in positive feelings and their expression.

Although various studies point to the importance of positive emotions for health and well-being across the entire life span, current research on age differences in emotional reactivity mainly focuses on negative emotions. Empirical evidence on positive emotions is scarce and mixed. Part of the inconsistencies may be related to study differences in the stimuli used and the emotional response systems considered.

The Role of Anticipated Gains and Losses on Preferences About Future Caregiving.

Objectives: A growing amount of research has suggested that caregiving is not only associated with burden but entails also the potential for positive outcomes. By contrast, less is known about the roles of gain-loss-anticipations on future caregiving.

Method: We conducted a web-based study in which we compared three groups with differing preferences on future caregiving: being willing to provide care (potential caregivers; n = 189), remaining indecisive about whether to provide care (undecided; n = 121), and rejecting the idea to provide care (unwilling; n = 62).

Effects of personality on the transition into caregiving.

Recent research has emphasized the critical role of personality in the caregiving situation, but not much is known about how individual differences shape the transitions into and out of caregiving. Based on longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, N= 14,495), we explored how personality is associated with adopting and maintaining the caregiving role. The results revealed that individuals with less emotional stability were more likely to take over the responsibility to provide care.

Aging well together--a mini-review.

We review the contribution of social integration on the process of successful aging. Building on empirical findings, we describe three major challenges and potentials of social contexts that are related to the elasticity, role differentiation, and the risk potentials of social relationships in adulthood. We propose a model of aging well together that advances concepts of selection, optimization, and compensation to social aging and to the mastery of relationship demands.