Optimal aging is strongly related to personality factors along with health-behavior habits. Personality has played a key role in understanding the interactions between human behavior and the environment and as a vital predictor in determining health outcomes of individuals. Although previous studies have found links between personality traits and health,...
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Karen A. Hooker
Optimal aging is strongly related to personality factors along with health
Ageism in the context of global population aging could lead to increasing human and economic costs. Age stereotypes tend to be negative (Hummert, 1990) and ubiquitous (Nelson, 2002) there are a variety of well documented detrimental consequences of negative age stereotypes on older adults' physical, cognitive and psychological outcomes (Hummert,...
Grounded in life span theory, this study explored how personal goals (as measured by possible selves) related to depressive symptoms in older adults. Possible selves represent individuals' ideas of what they would like to become (hoped-for selves) and what they are afraid of becoming (feared selves). Possible selves are also...
Adult development and social experiences are intertwined, which has implications for social policy, health, and well-being across the lifespan. This dissertation explores the benefit and risk that close social partners bring to adults' lives, and the efficacy and consequences of engaging social resources to maintain well-being in the face of...
The occurrence and timing of residential care of patients with dementia is
impacted by several care recipient and caregiver variables. Previous research has
shown a strong relationship among residential placement and marital status,
cognitive decline, deterioration in functional abilities, and presence of behavior
problems in the care recipient. Research on...
An ability to meet the changing demands associated with development
promotes purpose in life, a defining feature of psychological well-being. Midlife
adults consistently report higher purpose in life compared to older adults. However,
less is known about the dynamics of purpose in life in the transition from middle to
older...
In this dissertation, I explore how women and men in later life experience the world of dating and the pursuit of new intimate relationships. Although the mortality gap between women and men at older ages is narrowing, as they enter their 70s, 80s, and 90s, there are still at least...
The goal of this study was to pursue the construct of transcendence from a psychosocial, developmental perspective to predict who will volunteer and its influence on the average number of volunteer hours worked per week. The predictor variable is the self-transcendence subscale score on the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory (ASTI) (Levenson...
An estimated 5.7 million Americans are currently living with the dementia stage of Alzheimer’s disease, impeding health and wellbeing for individuals diagnosed, caregivers, families, and communities across the country (Alzheimer’s Association, 2018). Studying early indicators of age-related cognitive decline and pathological cognitive impairment (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease) is crucial to inform...
The growth of foster care, particularly kin foster care has greatly outpaced our knowledge. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to develop a more informed understanding of foster family functioning from the perspective of foster parents. This study examined the experiences of 9 kin and 12 nonkin foster...