Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pfund, Gabrielle N.
• Hofer, Matthias
• Allemand, Mathias
• Hill, Patrick L.

Titel

Being Social May Be Purposeful in Older Adulthood: A Measurement Burst Design

Ist Teil von

• The American journal of geriatric psychiatry, 2022-07, Vol.30 (7), p.777-786

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• •What is the primary question addressed by this study?The current paper utilizes a measurement burst design to investigate whether sense of purpose varies at the daily level in older adults, and to what extent that variability is due to positive or negative social interactions throughout the day.•What is the main finding of this study?About 40% of the variability in daily purpose occurs within-person, and that within person variability is connected to social interaction quality. In general, older adults who have better social interactions are more purposeful, and on days in which they have better social interactions than normally do, they also feel more purposeful than they normally do. This effect is particularly strong for older adults who are no longer working.•What is the meaning of the finding?The within-person variability daily purpose displayed in the current sample shows promise for future intervention efforts that can focus on short-term change, and enhancing social networks and connections may be one pathway to bolster sense of purpose more broadly. These findings are particularly relevant for more vulnerable populations known to experience purpose decline, such as retirees. By enhancing sense of purpose, older adults will then be more likely to experience the valuable cognitive and physical healthy aging benefits that come with it. Sense of purpose predicts a wide array of positive health, cognitive, and well-being outcomes during older adulthood. However, work is limited regarding how social relations correspond to purposefulness in daily life. The current study explored daily social interactions as a route to daily purposefulness in older adults, using a measurement burst design. Older adults completed surveys for three 5-day bursts each spread 6 months apart (Mage = 70.75, SD = 7.23; N = 104). Multilevel models demonstrated that on days when individuals reported more positive social interactions, they reported feeling more purposeful (est. = 0.39, 95% CI [0.28, 0.51]) when accounting for health, employment, and relationship status. Employment status moderated this association, as daily social interactions were more strongly associated with daily purpose for unemployed/retired individuals (est. = -0.23, 95% CI [-0.38, -0.08]). Positive social interactions thus may help older adults maintain purposefulness, particularly after retirement.