Family caregiving research is increasingly contextual and dynamic, but few studies have examined prevalence and predictors of change in primary caregivers, those with the most frequent contact with healthcare professionals. We identified prevalence and predictors of 2-year change in primary adult-child caregivers. Data pooled from the 1992-2000…

The influence of social support dimensions (the extent of contact with others, the satisfaction with contacts, and the availability of help if sick or disabled) in elderly people with cognitive impairment (COG), depressive symptoms (DEP), or the co-occurrence of these symptoms (COG-DEP) was assessed in a cross-sectional analysis of a…

Analyses examine change in the age people "feel" ("felt age") and "would like to be" ("ideal age") (relative to current age) in middle and later life. Data are from 1,815 respondents in two waves (1995-96, 2004-06) of the Midlife in the United States Survey (MIDUS) who were age 40+ at Wave 1. In aggregate, people feel about the same amount younger…

There is a well-established relationship between age and job satisfaction. To date, there is little research about how many well-known predictors of job satisfaction, specifically job characteristics and core self-evaluations, may vary with age. Using a multi-worksite sample of 1,873 employed adults aged 17 to 81, this study evaluated the extent…

To explore dimensions of successful aging, 71 men were selected for healthy adjustment and were prospectively studied in young adulthood (average age 20) and reassessed in 32-year and 48-year follow-ups. Despite an increase of medical problems, most men maintained healthy adjustment in early old age. At both follow-ups, successful young adult…

This study assessed the association between perceived health, fatigue, positive and negative affect, handgrip strength, objectively measured physical activity, body mass index, and self-reported functional limitations, assessed 6 months later, among 11 centenarians (age = 102 plus or minus 1). Activities of daily living, assessed 6 months prior to…

Enright and colleagues (1996) emphasized the beneficial effect of experiencing forgiveness across multiple domains. We build upon their conceptualization of forgiveness by adding a domain--forgiveness by God--to create global forgiveness. In the current study, we use data from a nationally representative study, the Religion, Aging and Health…

With rising longevity, increasing numbers of older people are experiencing changes in their everyday family and social life, changes in their financial status, and a greater number of chronic conditions affecting their health. We took the opportunity to explore these relationships with worry in a group of volunteer community-living elderly (n =…

The majority of our knowledge about eating disorders derives from adolescent and young adult samples; knowledge regarding disordered eating in middle and later adulthood is limited. We examined the associations among known predictors of eating disorders for younger adults in an age-diverse sample and within the context of psychological distress.…

As aging is occurring at a rate never before seen in South Korea, the present study examines the predictors of mental health in a nationally representative sample of older adults (n = 4,155), drawn from Wave I of the Korean Longitudinal Study on Aging. Findings show that sociodemographic factors, chronic health conditions, level of cognition, and…

Within gerontological caregiving research, there is a major emphasis on stresses and burdens of this role. Yet there has been little attention directed toward the coping strategies that caregivers engage in to cope with this role and the factors that influence their adoption of different coping strategies. This article examines coping strategies…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of background, psychological, and social variables on older adults' well-being, and how this may differ for men and women. Participants included 800 adults from the 2002 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), aged 60 to 101 years old (M = 71.22, SD = 8.46), who completed the optional positive…

Relationships between grandparents and grandchildren provide an excellent framework for integrating family theory and family methodology. Systematic differences as a function of age, gender, life expectancy, and health as played out through generations suggest some topics are best studied by disentangling variability between and within families.…

We examined the interplay between three explanatory hypotheses for why older adults appear to rate their problems as less stressful than do younger adults: age-related differences in personality, in types of problems, and in the appraisal process--specifically, the number of primary stress appraisals. A sample of 1,054 men from the Normative Aging…

This study addresses the question of how retired people's self-image differs from that of working people, and what factors predict people's self-definition as professionals or retirees. Seven hundred ninety-two Swiss persons aged 58-70 (386 men, 406 women; 349 not retired, 443 retired) were asked to rate the importance of different…