scholarly journals Me Time, or We Time? Age Differences in Motivation for Exercise

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal N Steltenpohl ◽  
Michael Shuster ◽  
Eric Peist ◽  
Amber Pham ◽  
Joseph A Mikels
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Exercise Motivation ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Motivational Messages ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Important Health ◽  
Important Health Issue ◽  
Meaningful Relationships

Abstract Background and Objectives Increasing exercise continues to be an important health issue for both older and younger adults. Researchers have suggested several methods for increasing exercise motivation. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) posits that people’s motivation shift from future-oriented instrumental goals to present-oriented emotionally meaningful goals as we age, which provides insight into how people’s motivations for exercise may differ for older versus younger adults. The aim of our study was to examine how exercise motivation differs for older versus younger adults. Research Design and Methods Older (greater than 59 years old) and younger (aged 18–26 years) adults participated in focus groups. They discussed exercise motivation (or lack thereof), motivators and barriers to exercise, and preferences about when, where, and with whom they exercise. Focus group transcripts were analyzed using direct content analysis and iterative categorization. Results Consistent with SST, younger adults generally preferred to exercise alone to achieve instrumental fitness goals, whereas older adults preferred to exercise with others. Additionally, older adults tend to consider peripheral others (e.g., strangers, acquaintances), as a positive rather than a negative influence. Discussion and Implications SST provides a framework for exploring age-related shifts in exercise motivation. Additionally, the positivity effect was reflected in how older adults evaluated the influence of peripheral others. Motivational messages could be tailored to increase health behavior changes by focusing on instrumental exercise goals for younger adults and exercise focused on meaningful relationships for older adults.

scholarly journals Me Time, or We Time? Age Differences in Motivation for Exercise

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal Nicole Steltenpohl ◽  
Michael J. Shuster ◽  
Amber Pham ◽  
Eric Peist ◽  
Joseph Mikels
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Exercise Motivation ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Motivational Messages ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Important Health ◽  
Important Health Issue ◽  
Meaningful Relationships

Background and Objectives: Increasing exercise continues to be an important health issue for both older and younger adults. Researchers have suggested several methods for increasing exercise motivation. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) posits that people’s motivation shift from future-oriented instrumental goals to present-oriented emotionally meaningful goals as we age, which provides insight into how people’s motivations for exercise may differ for older versus younger adults. The aim of our study was to examine how exercise motivation differs for older versus younger adults.Research Design and Methods: Older (greater than 59 years old) and younger (aged 18–26 years) adults participated in focus groups. They discussed exercise motivation (or lack thereof), motivators and barriers to exercise, and preferences about when, where, and with whom they exercise. Focus group transcripts were analyzed using direct content analysis and iterative categorization.Results: Consistent with SST, younger adults generally preferred to exercise alone to achieve instrumental fitness goals, whereas older adults preferred to exercise with others. Additionally, older adults tend to consider peripheral others (e.g., strangers, acquaintances), as a positive rather than a negative influence. Discussion and Implications: SST provides a framework for exploring age-related shifts in exercise motivation. Additionally, the positivity effect was reflected in how older adults evaluated the influence of peripheral others. Motivational messages could be tailored to increase health behavior changes by focusing on instrumental exercise goals for younger adults and exercise focused on meaningful relationships for older adults.

scholarly journals Adult age differences in subjective responses to dynamic socioemotional incentives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sade J Abiodun ◽  
Galen McAllister ◽  
Gregory Russell Samanez-Larkin ◽  
Kendra Leigh Seaman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Incentive Motivation ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Adult Age Differences

Facial expressions are powerful communicative social signals that motivate feelings and action in the observer. However, research on incentive motivation has overwhelmingly focused on money and points and the limited research on social incentives has been mostly focused on responses in young adulthood. Previous research on the age-related positivity effect and adult age differences in social motivation suggest that older adults might experience higher levels of positive arousal to socioemotional stimuli than younger adults. Affect ratings following dynamic emotional expressions (anger, happiness, sadness) varying in magnitude of expression showed that higher magnitude expressions elicited higher arousal and valence ratings. Older adults did not differ significantly in levels of arousal when compared to younger adults, however their ratings of emotional valence were significantly higher as the magnitude of expressions increased. The findings provide novel evidence that socioemotional incentives may be relatively more reinforcing as adults age. More generally, these dynamic socioemotional stimuli that vary in magnitude are ideal for future studies of more naturalistic affect elicitation, studies of social incentive processing, and use in incentive-driven choice tasks.

scholarly journals Advanced Aging Enhances the Positivity Effect in Memory: Due to Cognitive Control or Age-Related Decline in Emotional Processing?

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michiko Sakaki ◽  
Jasmine A. L. Raw ◽  
Jamie Findlay ◽  
Mariel Thottam
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Aging Brain ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Conditioned Responses

Older adults typically remember more positive than negative information compared to their younger counterparts; a phenomenon referred to as the ‘positivity effect.’ According to the socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), the positivity effect derives from the age-related motivational shift towards attaining emotionally meaningful goals which become more important as the perception of future time becomes more limited. Cognitive control mechanisms are critical in achieving such goals and therefore SST predicts that the positivity effect is associated with preserved cognitive control mechanisms in older adults. In contrast, the aging-brain model suggests that the positivity effect is driven by an age-related decline in the amygdala which is responsible for emotional processing and emotional learning. The aim of the current research was to address whether the age-related positivity effect is associated with cognitive control or impaired emotional processing associated with aging. We included older old adults, younger old adults and younger adults and tested their memory for emotional stimuli, cognitive control and amygdala-dependent fear conditioned responses. Consistent with prior research, older adults, relative to younger adults, demonstrate better memory for positive over negative images. We further found that within a group of older adults, the positivity effect increases as a function of age, such that older old adults demonstrated a greater positivity effect compared to younger older adults. Furthermore, the positivity effect in older old adults was associated with preserved cognitive control, supporting the prediction of SST. Contrary to the prediction of the aging-brain model, participants across all groups demonstrated similar enhanced skin conductance responses to fear conditioned stimuli – responses known to rely on the amygdala. Our results support SST and suggest that the positivity effect in older adults is achieved by the preserved cognitive control mechanisms and is not a reflection of the impaired emotional function associated with age.

scholarly journals Eye movements reveal a similar positivity effect in Chinese and UK older adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 1921-1929
Author(s):  
Jingxin Wang ◽  
Fang Xie ◽  
Liyuan He ◽  
Katie L Meadmore ◽  
Kevin B Paterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Increase

The “positivity effect” (PE) reflects an age-related increase in the preference for positive over negative information in attention and memory. The present experiment investigated whether Chinese and UK participants produce a similar PE. In one experiment, we presented pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures simultaneously and participants decided which picture they liked or disliked on a third of trials, respectively. We recorded participants’ eye movements during this task and compared time looking at, and memory for, pictures. The results suggest that older but not younger adults from both China and UK participant groups showed a preference to focus on and remember pleasant pictures, providing evidence of a PE in both cultures. Bayes Factor analysis supported these observations. These findings are consistent with the view that older people preferentially focus on positive emotional information, and that this effect is observed cross-culturally.

scholarly journals Cultural Relevance Reduces the Enhanced Neural Processing of Positively Valenced Information in Older Adults

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (10) ◽  
pp. 2075-2085 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianmin Gong ◽  
Helene H Fung ◽  
Ginger Qinghong Zeng ◽  
Chun-Yu Tse
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Cultural Relevance ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Older Chinese ◽  
Dual Route Model

Abstract Objectives This study investigated (a) whether the age-related enhancement in processing positive relative to negative emotional information happened at the early and/or late processing stages and (b) if the age-related positivity effect was modulated by cultural relevance using event-related brain potential (ERP). Methods Seventeen younger and 19 older Chinese adults judged the emotional valence of Chinese and Western pictures while electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded and analyzed by temporospatial principal component analysis to dissociate the processing stages. Results (a) Larger N100 for negative than positive pictures was observed in younger, but not older adults, while older but not younger adults showed larger late anterior P300 for positive than negative pictures. (b) Older adults showed larger early posterior P300 for positive than negative Western pictures, but not culturally relevant Chinese pictures; such modulation effect by cultural relevance was absent in younger adults. Discussion These findings suggest an age-related decrease in sensitivity to negative information in the earlier stage and an age-related increase in sensitivity to positive information in the later stage of cognitive processing. This supports a dual-route model of the age-related positivity effect. Moreover, the age-related positivity effect is more evident for stimuli with less cultural relevance.

scholarly journals Aging, Empathy, and Prosocial Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 742-743
Author(s):  
Isu Cho ◽  
Ryan Daley ◽  
Tony Cunningham ◽  
Elizabeth Kensinger ◽  
Angela Gutchess
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Prosocial Behaviors ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Related Stress ◽  
Health Complications ◽  
Meaningful Relationships ◽  
Dispositional Empathy

Abstract Previous literature has shown age-related increases in prosociality (i.e., the tendency to engage in behaviors that benefit others). Can such age-related differences be observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, or would young adults’ higher levels of COVID-19-related stress alter the relation between age and prosociality given the prior findings that stress may promote prosocial behaviors? Can empathy, one of the factors highly related to prosociality, explain any observed age-related differences? The current study examined the above questions, as well as whether age differences exist in target of prosocial behaviors (i.e., distant- versus close-others). To this end, participants (aged 18-89) enrolled in an ongoing study examining their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were asked to complete a series of surveys on dispositional empathy and prosocial behaviors during the pandemic. In the present analyses, the data were used from 330 participants from the USA who completed all of the surveys. Compared to younger adults, results indicate that older adults showed greater prosocial behaviors during the pandemic despite their higher risk of physical-health complications from COVID-19. Unexpectedly, empathy did not explain such age-related increases in prosocial behaviors even though it was positively related to individuals’ prosociality. Interestingly, older adults reported increased prosocial behaviors towards close-others (i.e., family, friends) compared to young adults, suggesting that older adults seem to devote more resources into emotionally meaningful relationships. The current study contributes to our understanding of how prosociality differs with age during the stressful period of need that marks the COVID-19 pandemic.

Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Marianne Yee ◽  
Sarah L Adams ◽  
Asad Beck ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

Internet Navigation Skills for Financial Management: Associations with Age, Neurocognitive Performance, and Functional Capacity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samina Rahman ◽  
Victoria Kordovski ◽  
Savanna Tierney ◽  
Steven Paul Woods
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Functional Capacity ◽  
Financial Management ◽  
Internet Banking ◽  
Online Banking ◽  
Neurocognitive Performance ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Neurocognitive Functions ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Use Factors

Objective: Online banking is becoming increasingly common among older adults, whomay experience difficulties effectively navigating this instrumental technology. Thisstudy examined age effects on a performance-based Internet banking task and itsassociation with neurocognitive ability and functional capacity in older and youngeradults. Method: Thirty-five older adults and 50 younger adults completed anexperimenter-controlled online banking measure in which they independentlyperformed a series of naturalistic financial tasks (e.g., account transfers, bill paying).Participants also completed a standardized battery of neuropsychological tests andmeasures of functional capacity. Results: Older adults were markedly slower and lessaccurate in completing the Internet-based banking task, which was not confounded byother demographic, mood, or computer use factors. Higher scores on measures ofneurocognition and financial functional capacity were both strongly associated withhigher Internet-based banking task accuracy scores and quicker completion times inthe older, but not the younger adults. Conclusions: Findings suggest that older adultsexperience difficultly quickly and accurately navigating online banking platforms, whichmay be partly related to age-related declines in neurocognitive functions and basicfinancial capacity. Future studies might examine whether neurocognitive approaches toremediation and compensation can be used to improve online banking capacity inolder adults.

scholarly journals Effects of aging on emotion recognition from dynamic multimodal expressions and vocalizations

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana S. Cortes ◽  
Christina Tornberg ◽  
Tanja Bänziger ◽  
Hillary Anger Elfenbein ◽  
Håkan Fischer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Effects Of Aging

AbstractAge-related differences in emotion recognition have predominantly been investigated using static pictures of facial expressions, and positive emotions beyond happiness have rarely been included. The current study instead used dynamic facial and vocal stimuli, and included a wider than usual range of positive emotions. In Task 1, younger and older adults were tested for their abilities to recognize 12 emotions from brief video recordings presented in visual, auditory, and multimodal blocks. Task 2 assessed recognition of 18 emotions conveyed by non-linguistic vocalizations (e.g., laughter, sobs, and sighs). Results from both tasks showed that younger adults had significantly higher overall recognition rates than older adults. In Task 1, significant group differences (younger > older) were only observed for the auditory block (across all emotions), and for expressions of anger, irritation, and relief (across all presentation blocks). In Task 2, significant group differences were observed for 6 out of 9 positive, and 8 out of 9 negative emotions. Overall, results indicate that recognition of both positive and negative emotions show age-related differences. This suggests that the age-related positivity effect in emotion recognition may become less evident when dynamic emotional stimuli are used and happiness is not the only positive emotion under study.

scholarly journals Positive Emodiversity Buffers the Association Between Stress and Depressive Symptoms

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 653-653
Author(s):  
Lizbeth Benson ◽  
Anthony Ong
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Life Span ◽  
Daily Diary ◽  
National Study ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Shannon's Entropy ◽  
Daily Experiences ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Optimal Functioning

Abstract Intensive measurements of individuals’ experiences allow for identifying patterns of functioning that may be markers of resilience, and whether such patterns differ across the life span. Using 8 daily diary reports collected in the second burst of the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE, n=848, age 34-84; 55%female), we examined whether positive emodiversity (Shannon’s entropy) attenuated the association between cumulative stressor exposure and depressive symptoms, and age-related differences therein. Results indicated age moderated the extent to which positive emodiversity attenuated the association between stress and depressive symptoms (b=0.11, p < .05). The attenuated association was strongest for younger adults with higher positive emodiversity, compared to those with lower positive emodiversity. For older adults, the association between stress and depressive symptoms was relatively similar regardless of their positive emodiversity. Implications pertain to for whom and in what contexts specific types of dynamic emotion experiences may promote optimal functioning and resilience.

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