Between loneliness and belonging: narratives of social isolation among immigrant older adults in Canada

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Sharon Koehn ◽  
Ilyan Ferrer ◽  
Shari Brotman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Structural Forces ◽  
Linked Lives ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Immigrant And Refugee

Abstract Research points to a higher risk for social isolation and loneliness among new immigrant and refugee older adults. Our article draws from a research project that explored the everyday stories of ageing among 19 diverse immigrant older adults in Canada. To capture their experiences of loneliness and social isolation, we use four illustrative cases derived from a structural approach to life-story narrative. To these we apply the intersectional lifecourse analytical lens to examine how life events, timing and structural forces shape our participants’ experiences of social isolation and loneliness. We further explore the global and linked lives of our participants as well as the categories of difference that influence their experiences along the continua of loneliness to belonging, isolation to connection. Finally, we discuss how an understanding of sources of domination and expressions of agency and resistance to these forces might lead us to solutions.

scholarly journals Some personal life events are more prominent than others: Younger and older adults agree on which life events matter most

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-569
Author(s):  
Sharda Umanath ◽  
Dorthe Berntsen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Life Script

Some important life events are part of the cultural life script as expected transitional events with culturally sanctioned timing. However, not all personally important events align with the cultural life script, including some events that are widely experienced. Here, we ask whether there are specific characteristics that define the events that become part of a culture’s life script and what role life experience plays. In Experiment 1, younger adults rated life events on different measures tapping central event dimensions in autobiographical memory theories. Cross-culturally extremely frequent cultural life script events consistently received higher ratings than other commonly experienced life story events. Experiment 2 demonstrated that these findings did not interact with age. Both younger and older adults rated the extreme cultural life script events most highly. In addition, older adults rated all types of life events more highly than younger adults, suggesting a greater appreciation of life events overall.

Predicting the Everyday Life Events of Older Adults

1991 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Zautra ◽  
John F. Finch ◽  
John W. Reich ◽  
Charles A. Guamaccia
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Life Events ◽  
The Everyday

Remembering rape: The temporal construction of sexual violence in autobiographical narratives from 1990s Finland

Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072199303
Author(s):  
Matleena Frisk ◽  
Riikka Taavetti
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Temporal Changes ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Autobiographical Narratives ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Sex Research

This article examines how historical contexts affect the recollection of experiences of rape. We reanalyze sexual autobiographies that were gathered in Finland in 1992 in a sex research project called FINSEX. To illustrate how the time of the rape as well as the time it is recalled shape the possibilities of narrating a life story, we present a close reading of four autobiographies that we place in the context of the collection as a whole, and compare our analysis of the autobiographies to their interpretation in the FINSEX study. The narrative elements of the autobiographies reflect the violent experiences in complex and layered ways. For the authors of these autobiographies, temporal changes in cultural and social understandings of sexual violence enable the reinterpreting of life events and the naming of previously unnamed experiences.

scholarly journals The Reminiscence Bump Effect in Autobiographies

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 367-367
Author(s):  
Hannah Benz ◽  
Thomas Pierce ◽  
Grace Flood
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Reminiscence Bump ◽  
A Value ◽  
The Mean

Abstract The reminiscence bump effect refers to the tendency for older adults to recall more life events from their late teens through early thirties than from other periods of life. Participants in laboratory studies are often encouraged to recall events quickly and spontaneously, with the intention of eliciting those life events that come most easily to mind. The purpose of this study was to determine if a reminiscence bump effect is observed in accounts of life events that are carefully organized and narrated over prolonged periods of time; specifically, those presented in published autobiographies. 1911 life events were collected from the autobiographies of 16 authors. Four authors were female and 12 were male. The mean age of authors at the time of publication was 65.88 (SD = 13.94). 45.52% of life events reported in autobiographies occurred when authors were between 18 and 32 years of age, a value significantly higher than expected by chance [Chi-square (1, N = 1911) = 457.70, p < .001] and consistent with those found in laboratory studies supporting the reminiscence bump effect (e.g., Rubin, Wetzler, & Nebes, 1986). In addition, the 15-year reminiscence bump period represented an average of 22.77% of the authors’ lives at the time they published their autobiography; however, events from the reminiscence bump period took up an average of 42.52% of the pages in their autobiographies. These data provide evidence for a reminiscence bump effect in carefully considered life story narratives which required months or years to complete.

Video Games and Emotion Regulation

GeroPsych ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 205-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Ossenfort ◽  
Derek M. Isaacowitz
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Media Preferences

Abstract. Research on age differences in media usage has shown that older adults are more likely than younger adults to select positive emotional content. Research on emotional aging has examined whether older adults also seek out positivity in the everyday situations they choose, resulting so far in mixed results. We investigated the emotional choices of different age groups using video games as a more interactive type of affect-laden stimuli. Participants made multiple selections from a group of positive and negative games. Results showed that older adults selected the more positive games, but also reported feeling worse after playing them. Results supplement the literature on positivity in situation selection as well as on older adults’ interactive media preferences.

Social isolation and health in older adults

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Cacioppo ◽  
Louise C. Hawkley
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Isolation

Addressing Social Isolation To Improve the Health of Older Adults: A Rapid Review

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Veazie ◽  
Jennifer Gilbert ◽  
Kara Winchell ◽  
Robin Paynter ◽  
Jeanne-Marie Guise
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Rapid Review

Physical environment and daily life in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros. The bioarchaeological remains

2019 ◽  
pp. 159-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arto Penttinen ◽  
Dimitra Mylona
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Soil Samples ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Archaeological Excavation ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Over Time

The section below contains reports on bioarchaeological remains recovered in the excavations in Areas D and C in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros, between 2003 and 2005. The excavations were directed by the late Berit Wells within a research project named Physical Environment and Daily Life in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia (Poros). The main objective of the project was to study what changed and what remained constant over time in the everyday life and in both the built and physical environment in an important sanctuary of the ancient Greeks. The bioarchaeological remains, of a crucial importance for this type of study, were collected both by means of traditional archaeological excavation and by processing extensively collected soil samples. This text aims to providing the theoretical and archaeological background for the analyses that follow.

Addressing COVID-19 Worry and Social Isolation in Home-Based Primary Care

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Elizabeth Weiskittle ◽  
Michelle Mlinac ◽  
LICSW Nicole Downing
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Primary Care ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Mental Health Providers ◽  
Health Providers ◽  
Home Based Primary Care ◽  
Home Based ◽  
Socially Isolated

Social distancing measures following the outbreak of COVID-19 have led to a rapid shift to virtual and telephone care. Social workers and mental health providers in VA home-based primary care (HBPC) teams face challenges providing psychosocial support to their homebound, medically complex, socially isolated patient population who are high risk for poor health outcomes related to COVID-19. We developed and disseminated an 8-week telephone or virtual group intervention for front-line HBPC social workers and mental health providers to use with socially isolated, medically complex older adults. The intervention draws on skills from evidence-based psychotherapies for older adults including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and Problem-Solving Therapy. The manual was disseminated to VA HBPC clinicians and geriatrics providers across the United States in March 2020 for expeditious implementation. Eighteen HBPC teams and three VA Primary Care teams reported immediate delivery of a local virtual or telephone group using the manual. In this paper we describe the manual’s development and clinical recommendations for its application across geriatric care settings. Future evaluation will identify ways to meet longer-term social isolation and evolving mental health needs for this patient population as the pandemic continues.

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