Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kunzmann, Ute
• Little, Todd D
• Smith, Jacqui
• Light, Leah L

Titel

Is Age-Related Stability of Subjective Well-Being a Paradox?: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence From the Berlin Aging Study

Ist Teil von

• Psychology and aging, 2000-09, Vol.15 (3), p.511-526

Ort / Verlag

Washington, DC: American Psychological Association

Erscheinungsjahr

2000

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Subjective well-being is thought to remain relatively stable into old age despite health-related losses. Age and functional health constraints were examined as predictors of individual differences and intraindividual change in subjective well-being, as indicated by positive and negative affect, using cross-sectional ( N = 516) and longitudinal ( N = 203) samples from the Berlin Aging Study (age range 70-103 years). In cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, age and functional health constraints were negatively related to positive affect but unrelated to negative affect. Cross-sectionally, controlling for functional health constraints reversed the direction of the relationship between age and positive affect and produced a negative association between age and negative affect. Findings suggest two qualifications to the average stability of overall subjective well-being: Only some dimensions of subjective well-being remain stable, while others decline; age per se is not a cause of decline in subjective well-being but health constraints are.