Objectives. To explore the concept of work instability (WI), a state in which the consequences of a mismatch between an individual's functional abilities and the demands of his or her job could threaten continuing employment if not resolved, in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). To develop the Work Instability Scale (WIS). Methods. WI in people with RA was explored through qualitative interviews, which were then used to generate items for the WIS. Results. Through Rasch analysis and validation against a gold standard of expert vocational assessment, a short 23-item, self administered, RA WIS was developed. Conclusion. The WIS can be scored in 3 bands indicating low, medium, and high risk of work disability.

Little is known about how optimism differs by age and changes over time, particularly among older adults. Even less is known about how changes in optimism are related to changes in physical health. We examined age differences and longitudinal changes in optimism in 9,790 older adults over a four-year period. We found an inverted U-shaped pattern between optimism and age both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, such that optimism generally increased in older adults before decreasing. Increases in optimism over a four-year period were associated with improvements in self-rated health and fewer chronic illnesses over the same time frame. The findings from the current study are consistent with changes in emotion regulation strategies employed by older adults and age-related changes in well-being.

The present study tested the effect of conscientiousness and neuroticism on health and physical limitations in a representative sample of older couples (N = 2,203) drawn from the Health and Retirement Study. As in past research, conscientiousness predicted better health and physical functioning, whereas neuroticism predicted worse health and physical functioning. Unique to this study was the finding that conscientiousness demonstrated a compensatory effect, such that husbands' conscientiousness predicted wives' health outcomes above and beyond wives' own personality. The same pattern held true for wives' conscientiousness as a predictor of husbands' health outcomes. Furthermore, conscientiousness and neuroticism acted synergistically, such that people who scored high for both traits were healthier than others. Finally, we found that the combination of high conscientiousness and high neuroticism was also compensatory, such that the wives of men with this combination of personality traits reported better health than other women.

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Life course and cohort-related factors contribute to similarities across societies in network types and their associations with well-being. Korean-specific life course and socio-historical factors, however, may contribute to our unique findings about network types.

Although control beliefs are thought to be pivotal contributors to emotional well-being in old age, questions remain about the specific and long-term emotional implications of different types of control beliefs. We examined three generalized beliefs about control (personal control over desirable outcomes, personal responsibility for undesirable outcomes, perceived others' control) and their associations with emotional well-being (positive and negative affect) using cross-sectional (N = 516) and longitudinal (N = 206) samples from the Berlin Aging Study (age range = 70-103 years). Relationships between control beliefs and emotional well-being were dependent on the type of control belief and the dimension of emotional well-being considered, the sample investigated, and on whether individual differences at a given point in time or individual differences in intraindividual changes over time were examined. Despite these complexities, findings suggest that perceived control over desirable outcomes is associated with high emotional well-being, whereas perceived others' control is an emotional risk factor in old age.

Background Although higher optimism has been linked with an array of positive health behaviors, biological processes, and cardiovascular outcomes, the relationship between optimism and heart failure has not been examined. In the United States, 80% of heart failures occur in adults aged 65+. Therefore, we examined whether higher optimism was linked with a reduced incidence of heart failure among older adults. Methods and Results Prospective data were from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative study of older U.S adults. Our sample included 6,808 participants who were followed for four years. Multiple logistic regression models were used to assess if optimism was independently associated with incident heart failure. We adjusted for sociodemographic, behavioral, biological, and psychological covariates. Higher optimism was associated with a lower risk of incident heart failure over the follow-up period. In a model that adjusted for sociodemographic factors, each standard deviation increase in optimism had an odds ratio of 0.74 (95% CI, 0.63–0.85) for heart failure. Effects of optimism persisted even after adjusting for a wide range of covariates. There was also evidence of a dose-response relationship. As optimism increased, risk of developing heart failure decreased monotonically, with a 48% reduced odds among people with the highest versus lowest optimism. Conclusions This is the first study to suggest that optimism is associated with a lower risk of heart failure. If future studies confirm these findings, they may be used to inform new strategies for preventing or delaying the onset of heart failure.

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