scholarly journals Age Advantages in Emotional Experience Persist Even Under Threat From the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura L. Carstensen ◽  
Yochai Z. Shavit ◽  
Jessica T. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Age Differences ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
The Face ◽  
Unavoidable Stress ◽  
Prolonged Stress

<p>The COVID-19 pandemic is creating unprecedented, sustained, and unavoidable stress for the entire population, with older people facing particularly heightened risk of contracting the virus and suffering severe complications including death. The present study was conducted when the pandemic was spreading exponentially in the United States. To address important theoretical questions about age differences in emotional experience in times of crisis, we surveyed a representative sample of 945 Americans aged 18-76 and assessed the frequency and intensity of a range of positive and negative emotions. We also assessed perceived risk of contagion and complications from the virus, as well as personality, health, and demographic characteristics. Age was associated with relatively greater emotional well-being with and without controlling for perceived risk and other covariates. Findings extend previous research about age and emotion by demonstrating that older adults’ relatively better emotional well-being persists even in the face of prolonged stress.</p><p><br></p><p>Accepted for COVID-19 fast-track publication in Psychological Science.<br></p>

scholarly journals Age Advantages in Emotional Experience Persist Even Under Threat From the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura L. Carstensen ◽  
Yochai Z. Shavit ◽  
Jessica T. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Age Differences ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
The Face ◽  
Unavoidable Stress ◽  
Prolonged Stress

<p>The COVID-19 pandemic is creating unprecedented, sustained, and unavoidable stress for the entire population, with older people facing particularly heightened risk of contracting the virus and suffering severe complications including death. The present study was conducted when the pandemic was spreading exponentially in the United States. To address important theoretical questions about age differences in emotional experience in times of crisis, we surveyed a representative sample of 945 Americans aged 18-76 and assessed the frequency and intensity of a range of positive and negative emotions. We also assessed perceived risk of contagion and complications from the virus, as well as personality, health, and demographic characteristics. Age was associated with relatively greater emotional well-being with and without controlling for perceived risk and other covariates. Findings extend previous research about age and emotion by demonstrating that older adults’ relatively better emotional well-being persists even in the face of prolonged stress.</p><p><br></p><p>Accepted for COVID-19 fast-track publication in Psychological Science.<br></p>

scholarly journals Age Advantages in Emotional Experience Persist Even Under Threat From the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (11) ◽  
pp. 1374-1385
Author(s):  
Laura L. Carstensen ◽  
Yochai Z. Shavit ◽  
Jessica T. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
The Face ◽  
Unavoidable Stress ◽  
Prolonged Stress

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating unprecedented, sustained, and unavoidable stress for the entire population, and older people are facing particularly heightened risk of contracting the virus and suffering severe complications, including death. The present study was conducted when the pandemic was spreading exponentially in the United States. To address important theoretical questions about age differences in emotional experience in times of crisis, we surveyed a representative sample of 945 Americans between the ages of 18 and 76 years and assessed the frequency and intensity of a range of positive and negative emotions. We also assessed perceived risk of contagion and complications from the virus, as well as personality, health, and demographic characteristics. Age was associated with relatively greater emotional well-being both when analyses did and did not control for perceived risk and other covariates. The present findings extend previous research about age and emotion by demonstrating that older adults’ relatively better emotional well-being persists even in the face of prolonged stress.

scholarly journals Approaches to Reducing Risk of COVID-19 Infections in Prisons and Immigration Detention Centers: A Commentary

2020 ◽  
pp. 073401682095770
Author(s):  
Kate Kelly ◽  
Nai Soto ◽  
Nadi Damond Wisseh ◽  
Shaina A. Clerget
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Correctional Staff ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
Fast Spreading ◽  
Returning Home ◽  
The Face

Although often left out of public health efforts and policy decisions, prisons, jails, and detention centers are integral to community health. With an average of 650,000 citizens returning home from prison each year in the United States, and thousands of correctional staff members returning home every night, there are millions of touchpoints between outside communities and carceral settings. For this reason, carceral communities should be central to planning and policy making in response to the spread of the COVID-19 illness. As social workers and clinicians, we are urgently concerned that efforts to prevent COVID-19 infections in prisons are underdeveloped and inadequate in the face of a fast-spreading virus. In this commentary, we outline a set of public health, policy, and clinical recommendations based upon the existing literature to mitigate various risks to the well-being of carceral communities.

scholarly journals Age Differences in the Relationship Between Daily Social Media Usage and Affect

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 410-410
Author(s):  
Xin Yao Lin ◽  
Margie Lachman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Daily Time

Abstract Social media platforms allow people to connect and share content online (e.g., Facebook, Twitter). Although older adults are becoming more frequent users of social media, there continue to be mixed views on whether social media positively or negatively impacts well-being. Past studies have mainly focused on cross-sectional analyses for individual differences. However, both the time spent on social media and one’s affect can fluctuate on a daily basis. Thus, it is important to understand how the relationship between daily social media usage and affect varies within individuals from day to day. The current study adds to the literature by examining whether daily variations in time spent with social media are related to daily positive and negative affect and whether there are age differences in these relationships. The current study used an eight-day daily diary from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Refresher dataset for 782 participants (ages 25-75). Multilevel modeling results revealed that age moderated the relationship between daily time spent on social media and negative affect: for younger adults, on days when they spent more time on social media, they had more negative affect. For older adults, on days when they spent more time on social media, they had less negative affect. Surprisingly, daily time spent on social media was not related to daily positive affect, nor did this relationship differ by age. Implications for future research are discussed with a focus on how social media usage can contribute to daily well-being for adults of different ages.

scholarly journals Did Social Connection Decline During the First Wave of COVID-19?: The Role of Extraversion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunigan Parker Folk ◽  
Karynna Okabe-Miyamoto ◽  
Elizabeth Warren Dunn ◽  
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Connection ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Face ◽  
Negative Effect

In two pre-registered studies, we tracked changes in individuals’ feelings of social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both studies capitalized on measures of social connection and well-being obtained prior to the COVID-19 pandemic by recruiting the same participants again in the midst of the pandemic’s upending effects. Study 1 included a sample of undergraduates from a Canadian university (N = 467), and Study 2 included community adults primarily from the United States and the United Kingdom (N = 336). Our results suggest that people experienced relatively little change in feelings of social connection in the face of the initial reshaping of their social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory analyses suggested that relatively extraverted individuals exhibited larger declines in social connection. However, after controlling for levels of social connection prior to the pandemic (as pre-registered), the negative effect of extraversion reversed (Study 1) or disappeared (Study 2).

scholarly journals Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0252962
Author(s):  
Silvia Barcellos ◽  
Mireille Jacobson ◽  
Arthur A. Stone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Related Factor ◽  
Percentage Points

Recent evidence suggests that psychological health deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic but far less is known about changes in other measures of well-being. We examined changes in a broad set of measures of well-being among seniors just before and after the recognition of community spread of COVID-19 in the United States. We fielded two waves of a survey to a large, national online panel of adults ages 60 to 68 at wave 1. We measured depressive symptoms, negative affect, positive affect, pain, life satisfaction and self-rated health in each survey wave. 16,644 adults answered well-being questions in waves 1 and 2 of our survey (mean[SD]: age 64 [2.6]; 10,165 women [61%]; 15,161 [91%] white). We found large (20%; p<0.001) increases in the rate of depressive symptoms (1.4 percentage points; 95% CI, 0.97 to 1.86) and negative mood (0.225 scale points; 95% CI, 0.205 to 0.245) but no change in self-reported health and a decrease (12.5%; p<0.001) in the rate of self-reported pain (5 percentage points; 95% CI, -5.8 to -4.3). Depressive symptoms and negative affect increased more for women. Higher perceived risk of getting COVID-19 and of dying from the disease were associated with larger increases in the rate of depressive symptoms and negative affect and larger decreases in positive affect and life satsifaction. COVID-19 related job/income loss was the only pandemic-related factor predictive of the decline in pain. Although depressive symptoms and mood worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, other measures of well-being were either not materially affected or even improved.

scholarly journals Socio-Economical Risks of the Pandemic Period and Practices to Overcome Them: Governments’ Policies and Citizens’ Strategies

2021 ◽  
pp. 78-88
Author(s):  
Nataliya Velikaya ◽  
Natalia Belova
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Face ◽  
Individual Strategies ◽  
Spread Of Infection ◽  
Economic Risks

The article is devoted to the reaction of the societies of four countries (the United States, Great Britain, Italy and Russia) to the global risks and challenges associated with the spread of the coronavirus epidemic, which has grown from a health problem to a global political and economic one. Considering the socio-economic risks of the pandemic as the most significant for the lives of citizens of different countries, the authors operationalize them through the fears of public consciousness. The events of the last year have shown that the increased fear and panic among the population in the face of "new infections" has turned into a global problem. The specifics of the life organization in the context of the spread of the pandemic have contributed to the emergence of new distinct socio-economic and socio-political practices that require analysis. The obvious request to the authorities from the population of different countries to ensure the adoption of timely and effective measures to prevent the spread of infection and minimize its consequences also actualize the study of public attitudes during the pandemic in a comparative context. Based on a comparative international online survey, the main socio-economic risks and fears of residents of the four countries were identified, which included both general threats to well-being (low incomes, unemployment, lack of prospects in life, housing problems, etc.) and threats actualized by the pandemic situation (difficulties in obtaining medical care, the high cost of medicines, the inability to go on vacation, difficulties with obtaining education). The differences in satisfaction with the socio-economic situation in the countries, including the response to the actions of governments and local authorities, were analyzed. The review of individual strategies for coping with crisis situations showed significant differences across countries. At the same time, in assessing the activities of the authorities, respondents demonstrate unanimity, showing dissatisfaction with the measures taken and concern for their well-being in the future. The conclusion is made about the actualization of socio-economic fears during the spread of the pandemic and the widespread deterioration of the social well-being of the population.

Self-Efficacy in Retrieving Positive Emotional Experience and Using Humor

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 409-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Gerbino ◽  
Michaela Milioni ◽  
Guido Alessandri ◽  
Nancy Eisenberg ◽  
Mariagiovanna Caprara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Discriminant Validity ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Internal Validity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Negative Experience ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Recent research has pointed to the benefits of positive emotions and their appropriate modulation in buffering the impact of negative experience, and in promoting well-being. Two studies examined the psychometric properties of a new scale that was designed to assess perceived self-efficacy in using memories of positive emotional experiences and humor to face challenges and to cope with stressful experiences. In the first study, we examined the factor structure and internal validity of two scales in youths from the United States (N = 1,277), Italy (N = 363), and Spain (N = 223). In the second study, we examined correlations of the two scales with positive affect, as well as other indicators of well-being and adjustment in the three countries (US: N = 499; Italian and Spanish samples of Study 1). The results of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported two distinct factors and showed acceptable partial invariance of the scales across countries. Correlations supported the scales’ construct and discriminant validity. Overall, the findings corroborated the psychometric properties of the two scales and the view of retrieval of positive emotional experiences and humor as distinct self-regulatory strategies.

scholarly journals Did Social Connection Decline During the First Wave of COVID-19?: The Role of Extraversion

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunigan Folk ◽  
Karynna Okabe-Miyamoto ◽  
Elizabeth Dunn ◽  
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Connection ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Face ◽  
Negative Effect

In two pre-registered studies, we tracked changes in individuals’ feelings of social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both studies capitalized on measures of social connection and well-being obtained prior to the COVID-19 pandemic by recruiting the same participants again in the midst of the pandemic’s upending effects. Study 1 included a sample of undergraduates from a Canadian university (N = 467), and Study 2 included community adults primarily from the United States and the United Kingdom (N = 336). Our results suggest that people experienced relatively little change in feelings of social connection in the face of the initial reshaping of their social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory analyses suggested that relatively extraverted individuals exhibited larger declines in social connection. However, after controlling for levels of social connection prior to the pandemic (as pre-registered), the negative effect of extraversion reversed (Study 1) or disappeared (Study 2).

Professional and social responsibility in Psychology and other mental health disciplines with reference to the Goldwater Rule

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 388-399
Author(s):  
Anthony L Pillay
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Ethical Guideline ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Face

The concerns of mental health professionals about the psychological characteristics and behaviour of political leaders forces a rethinking of their professional and social responsibility, especially in the context of the Goldwater Rule that applies to psychiatrists in the United States. Despite the fact that this ethical guideline does not pertain to Psychology professionals or the African continent, it is worthy of discussion and interrogation, considering the prevalence of poor leadership internationally, and the need for the previously colonised world to ensure independent and critical thinking on such matters. The article questions the traditional, narrow focus of psychologists and other mental health specialists in conceptualising professional and ethical roles, and raises the issue of their professional and social responsibility to help shape society and its democratic processes. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and others have much to contribute in this respect and they have to question the ethical and social responsibility impact of remaining silent in the face of behaviourally and psychologically maladjusted individuals being elected to high offices such as President and other influential positions. These professionals must adopt a public health approach that always has in mind the well-being of the broader society.

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