We examined the association between complexity of the main lifetime occupation and changes in cognitive ability in later life. Data on complexity of work with data, people, and things and on four cognitive factors (verbal, spatial, memory, and speed) were available from 462 individuals in the longitudinal Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. Mean age at the first measurement wave was 64.3 (s.d. = 7.2) and 65% of the sample had at least 3 waves of data. Occupational complexity with people and data were both correlated with cognitive performance. Individuals with more complex work demonstrated higher mean performance on the verbal, spatial, and speed factors. Latent growth curve analyses indicated that, after correcting for education, only complexity with people was associated with differences in cognitive performance and rate of cognitive change. Continued engagement as a result of occupational complexity with people helped to facilitate verbal function before retirement, while a previous high level of complexity of work with people was associated with faster decline after retirement on the spatial factor. KeywordsOccupational complexity; cognitive change; retirement As the prevalence of cognitive impairment continues to rise in parallel with increasing life expectancy, preserving cognitive health has become a growing concern among older adults. Associated with this concern has been an effort to identify factors that may help maintain cognitive function into older adulthood.Despite the fact that most people spend a substantial portion of their lives at work, our understanding of the relationship between occupational activity and cognition is limited. Schooler and colleagues' concept of "environmental complexity" provides some clues (Schooler, 1984;Schooler, Mulatu, & Oates, 2004). They posit that exposure to complex environments at work or during leisure enables continued practice of cognitive skills and Correspondence to: Deborah Finkel, Ph.D., Indiana University Southeast, 4201 Grant Line Road, New Albany, IN 47150, Phone: 812-941-2210, Fax: 812-941-2170.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/journals/pag. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptPsychol Aging. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 September 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript hence facilitates cognitive functioning. Several studies have supported the environmental complexity hypothesis with respect to work environment and cognitive function. Using data from the Maastricht Aging Study based in th...

Biological age measurements (BAs) assess aging-related physiological change and predict health risks among individuals of the same chronological age (CA). Multiple BAs have been proposed and are well studied individually but not jointly. We included 845 individuals and 3973 repeated measurements from a Swedish population-based cohort and examined longitudinal trajectories, correlations, and mortality associations of nine BAs across 20 years follow-up. We found the longitudinal growth of functional BAs accelerated around age 70; average levels of BA curves differed by sex across the age span (50–90 years). All BAs were correlated to varying degrees; correlations were mostly explained by CA. Individually, all BAs except for telomere length were associated with mortality risk independently of CA. The largest effects were seen for methylation age estimators (GrimAge) and the frailty index (FI). In joint models, two methylation age estimators (Horvath and GrimAge) and FI remained predictive, suggesting they are complementary in predicting mortality.

In a study designed to investigate the respective roles of religious fundamentalism and right-wing authoritarianism as predictors of prejudice against racial minorities and homosexuals, participants (47 males, 91 females) responded to a series of questionnaire measures of these constructs. Data were analyzed using multiple regression. Consistent with previous research, authoritarianism was a significant and strong positive predictor of both forms of prejudice. With authoritarianism statistically controlled, however, fundamentalism emerged as a significant negative predictor of racial prejudice but a positive predictor of homosexual prejudice. In a second study, we conducted parallel multiple regressions using the correlations from two previously published studies. The Study 1 results were replicated exactly, except that fundamentalism was a nonsignificant predictor of homosexual prejudice. We interpret the results as evidence that Christian fundamentalism consists of a second major component other than authoritarianism-related to Christian belief content-that is inversely related to some forms of prejudice (including racial prejudice) but not others (e.g., homosexual prejudice).In contrast to the message of brotherly love emphasized by most Christian theologies, decades of research have demonstrated an empirical relationship between religion and prejudice. Allport and Ross (1967) attempted to resolve this paradox by distinguishing two distinct forms of religious orientation, one of which was related to prejudice but one of which was not. Evidence regarding intrinsic religious orientation has been mixed-with early research demonstrating no relationship (see Donahue 1985 for a review) and more recent studies reporting both negative and positive relationships with prejudice (see Fulton, Gorsuch, and Maynard 1999 for a review)-and measures of Christian orthodoxy generally appear uncorrelated with prejudice (Altemeyer and Hunsberger 1992; Kirkpatrick 1993). Measures of extrinsic religious orientation, on the other hand, have generally been found to correlate positively with prejudice (Batson and Ventis 1982;Fulton et al. 1999;Kirkpatrick 1993). However, the dimension of religion found most consistently and strongly to correlate empirically with measures of prejudice has been fundamentalism (Altemeyer and

Bivariate dual change score models were applied to longitudinal data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging to compare the dynamic predictions of 2-component theories of intelligence and the processing speed theory of cognitive aging. Data from up to 5 measurement occasions covering a 16-year period were available from 806 participants ranging in age from 50 to 88 years at the first measurement wave. Factors were generated to tap 4 general cognitive domains: verbal ability, spatial ability, memory, and processing speed. Model fitting indicated no dynamic relationship between verbal and spatial factors, providing no support for the hypothesis that age changes in fluid abilities drive age changes in crystallized abilities. The results suggest that, as predicted by the processing speed theory of cognitive aging, processing speed is a leading indicator of age changes in memory and spatial ability, but not verbal ability.