This proposal is in response to the NIA: PILOT RESEARCH GRANT PROGRAM (Research Objective 22, """"""""Personality and Experimental Social Psychology""""""""). The proposed research integrates coping-based and resource deterioration models of the stress process in an innovative predictive framework that is especially relevant to aging. The early aging years from age 60 to 70 are developmentally significant because the potential for successful aging is considerable during this life stage. At the same time, early aging presents adaptive challenges because the loss of social resources associated with aging often begins during these years. Specific objectives of the research fall into two categories. The first category involves identifying how social resource change-particularly resource loss-relates to psychological adjustment between the ages of 60 and 70. These objectives include investigating: a) predictors of change in social resources, b) functional outcomes of change in social resources, and c) the role of social resource change in mediating between life change events and psychological functioning. The second category of objectives involves integrating coping strategies in the predictive model to provide a fuller understanding of adaptive functioning during this life stage. These objectives include investigating: a) the role of coping strategies early in the stress process in moderating the association between life change and change in social resources, and b) the role of coping strategies later in the stress process in mediating between change in social resources and psychological functioning. The research uses a 10-year longitudinal database available through the Center for Health Care Evaluation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University School of Medicine. The research involves a sample of 1884 adults between the ages of 55 and 65 at baseline. The database includes extensive data on life change events, social resources, coping strategies, and psychological functioning. All variables were assessed at four points in time over a 10-year period (i.e., baseline and 1-year, 4-year, and 10- year follow-ups). The proposed research will provide an essential foundation for acquiring funding for data collection with a new minority sample, focusing on proactive coping and social resources in the context of health-related stresses during aging, as well as new data collection with this sample, which can provide a fuller understanding of adaptive functioning into middle and later aging.
| Holahan, Charles J; Moos, Rudolf H; Holahan, Carole K et al. (2005) Stress generation, avoidance coping, and depressive symptoms: a 10-year model. J Consult Clin Psychol 73:658-66 |
