Christiane Hoppmann

The COVID-19 pandemic has threatened physical and mental health across the lifespan and highlighted the importance of safe everyday behaviours that individuals may engage in to maintain health and wellbeing. One health-promoting behaviour that has been encouraged by health officials during the pandemic is physical activity; however, research indicates that physical activity behaviours have decreased significantly during this time. The current study aimed to extend research on between-person differences in physical activity behaviours and barriers to physical activity by examining self-reported pain and loneliness on active vs. less-active days. To capture life as it is lived, time-varying associations of loneliness, subjective pain, and physical activity indicators were examined as participants went about their daily lives. It was hypothesized that individuals who reported more loneliness or subjective pain on a particular day would take fewer steps and engage in less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity that same day.Data were collected from April 2020 to August 2020. The sample included 139 community-dwelling Canadian adults (Mage = 40.65 years, SD = 18.37 , range = 18-83 years). Each evening for up to 10 consecutive days, participants reported their loneliness, subjective pain, number of steps, and minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. In line with the above hypotheses, loneliness and physical activity were significantly linked on a day-to-day basis, such that individuals who felt lonelier on a particular day engaged in less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity that same day. However, we did not find any significant relationships between pain and physical activity. From an intervention perspective, our findings may suggest that it is promising to tackle loneliness on a day-to-day basis to increase physical activity one day at a time. This may be especially relevant during times of mandated social-distancing, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, but also at other times when individuals experience greater feelings of loneliness.

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Objective: This study focuses on the role of spouses in facilitating goal progress during a phase in life when individual resources for goal pursuit are particularly limited. Specifically analyzingthe moderating role of relationship characteristics for time-varying partner involvement–goal progress associations as couples engaged in their everyday lives was examined. The time varying associations between everyday goal progress, effectiveness of partner contributions, and spousal satisfaction with this contribution were also assessed. Methods: Multilevel modellingwas used to analyze data from 118 couples (236 individuals, M age = 70 years, SD= 5.9; 60-87 years, 50% women; 57% White). Both partners reported their personal goals and provided information on relationship satisfaction, conflict, and support. They also provided simultaneous ratings of everyday goal progress, effort, and partner involvement as well as effectiveness of and satisfaction with partner contribution up to three times daily over 7 days. Results: In line with expectations, higher relationship satisfaction and support were associated with higher goal progress when a partner was involved in goal pursuit, whereas higher conflict was associated with less goal progress with the partner involved. Both effectiveness of and satisfaction with partner contributions were positively associated with everyday goal progress. Discussion:Whether partner involvement is beneficial for goal progress depends on characteristics of the relationship as well as what partners actually do in everyday life. This highlights the importance of considering both stable person characteristics as well as time-varying processes to capture the complexity of goal pursuit in older couples.

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Spousal support within marriage may be particularly important in old age when spouses become more likely to rely on each other’s help. However, spousal support does not have to be unanimously positive. In fact, very little is known about co-variations in spousal affect and aches as couples engage in their daily routines and environments. Up to 27 simultaneous, momentary assessments from 49 older adult married couples (M age = 72 years (60-83); M relationship duration = 42 years) were used taking into account the perspective of both partners. This research shows that social support within marriage was associated with reduced overall levels of negative affect but unrelated to positive affect. Interestingly, high spousal support was both associated with reduced overall negative affect means but also with an increased co-variation in negative affect between partners. No similar co-variations were observed for aches and positive affect. Spousal support may be a double-edged sword; it is associated with reduced overall negative affect, but it may also lead to more permeable boundaries between spouses that seem to be specific to negative affect.

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Objective: Marriage partners exert a special influence on each other’s health and wellbeing, potentially even more so in old age, when social networks shrink and spouses become ever more important resources for dealing with everyday problems. This study complements and extends past research by examining associations between older spouses’ levels of neuroticism, a key trait tied to wellbeing and health, and everyday fluctuations in affect quality, physical symptoms, and responses to everyday problems. Methods: Forty-nine wives and 49 husbands aged 60-83 years (M marriage duration = 42.5 years) first provided independent neuroticism self-report ratings. Spouses then completed up to 27 repeated daily life assessments (time-sampling), during which they simultaneously reported their affect quality, physical health symptoms, and everyday problems 3 times daily for 9 consecutive days on handheld computers. Results: Hierarchical linear modelling results replicate past work by showing negative associations between individual neuroticism and overall affect quality and physical symptoms. Interestingly, spousal neuroticism, in contrast, was positively associated with affect quality and physical symptoms, but only when problems were present. Specifically, having a spouse higher in neuroticism was associated with more favorable problem-affect quality associations and problem-physical symptom associations, even when controlling for marital satisfaction, age, gender, and level of conscientiousness.Conclusions: Findings are discussed in the context of the evolutionary psychology literature and may suggest that spousal neuroticism can serve adaptive functions by increasing vigilance and preparing older couples to deal with everyday problems.

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Negative emotions may be an outcome of goal progress. Importantly, negative emotions may also serve as guideposts for subsequent goal regulation by flagging which goals to pursue and which goals to let go. The authors examined this hypothesis using 10-day time-sampling information from 186 adults aged 20-81 years. In line with past work, young adults progressed less on their goals and experienced more negative emotions (anger, sadness) than older adults. Importantly, daily sadness and anger seem to serve different regulatory functions. Specifically, daily sadness was associated with subsequent increases in goal contemplation and end-of-study goal disengagement and goal reengagement whereas anger was not. Findings extend previous research by pointing to the adaptive potential of negative emotions for goal regulation across the adult lifespan.

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