Positive and negative social exchanges and cognitive aging in young-old adults: Differential associations across family, friend, and spouse domains.

Abstract

We examined how positive and negative social exchanges with friends, family, and spouses were related to cognitive aging in episodic and working memory, and perceptual speed. To do so, we used a large sample of cognitively intact young-old participants from the PATH Through Life Study (PATH; aged 60 to 64 years at baseline, n = 1,618) who were assessed on 3 occasions over 8 years. Additional replication analyses were conducted using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which provided data on episodic memory. The main analysis of PATH Through Life showed that positive exchanges with friends and family were associated with less decline in perceptual speed, with these associations attenuated by adjustment for physical functioning and depressive symptoms. Negative exchanges with spouses were associated with poorer working memory performance. Positive exchanges with friends were associated with better initial episodic memory in both PATH and HRS. More frequent negative exchanges with friends and family were associated with better episodic memory in the PATH sample. However, these findings were not replicated in HRS. Our findings provide indirect support for the role of social exchange quality in contributing to cognitive enrichment. However, the inconsistent pattern of results across cognitive and social exchange domains points to possibilities of reverse causality, and may also indicate that social exchange quality plays a less important role for cognitive enrichment than other psychosocial characteristics.

Negative social interactions and risk of mild cognitive impairment in old age.

“…However, this indicator of chronic daily relationship stress was also related to level of function and rate of decline in multiple other cognitive domains (Table 3). This mixed support for the attention–depletion hypothesis (Sliwinski et al, 2006) is consistent with previous epidemiologic research, with some evidence linking negative social interaction with lower performance on attention demanding tasks (Seeman et al, 2011; Tun et al, 2013) but other cross-sectional (Hughes et al, 2008; Seeman et al, 2001; Seeman et al, 2011; Okabayashi et al, 2004; Windsor et al, 2014) and longitudinal (Seeman et al, 2001; Hughes et al, 2008; Windsor et al, 2014) data suggesting no association or an association with other cognitive domains. Thus, chronic exposure to daily stressors may have a less selective association with cognition than acute exposure.…”

“…In the present study, frequency of negative social interactions did not change over time, and previous studies have found no change (Krause & Rook, 2003; Shaw et al, 2007) or a slight decrease (Windsor et al, 2014). The stability of negative social interaction rates across time and types of relationships (Krause & Rook, 2003) suggests that the disposition to be involved in interpersonal conflict or to interpret daily social interactions in a negative manneris a relatively stable trait.…”

“…A more critical question is whether higher level of exposure to daily stressors contributes to late-life cognitive lossbe cause it would suggest that programs of stress reduction (Khoury et al, 2013) and reappraisal (Hofmann, Asnaani, Vonk, Sawyer, & Fang, 2012) might help maintain cognitive health in old age. Longitudinal studies of daily stress and cognition have been inconclusive (Seeman, Lusignolo, Albert, & Berkman, 2001; Hughes, Andel, Small, Bornstein, & Mortimer, 2008; Windsor, Gerstorf, Pearson, Ryan, & Anstey, 2014), but methodological factors may have limited the opportunity to observe an association in these studies.…”

Fatores Relevantes na Avaliação Cognitiva da População Portuguesa

“…14,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] No âmbito deste estudo e como um dos objetivos específicos, realizaram-se análises das possíveis associações entre os estilos de vida e o declínio cognitivo, tendo em conta que ao definir grupos de risco, uma intervenção precoce pode ter impacto numa perspetiva de política de saúde pública.…”

“…Para um envelhecimento bem-sucedido, uma premissa fundamental é o envolvimento do idoso em atividades intelectuais, sociais e fisicamente estimulantes. [18][19][20] O estudo univariado realizado mostra-nos que todas as variáveis pesquisadas estão significativamente associadas com uma melhor avaliação cognitiva (exceto viver sozinho e autonomia a lavar a roupa).…”