Scholz Urte, Kliegel Matthias, Luszczynska Aleksandra, Knoll Nina
Department of Psychology, Developmental & Health Psychology, University of Konstanz, P.O. Box 5560/14, 78457 Constance, Germany.
University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Eur J Ageing. 2012 Jun 27;9(4):361-371. doi: 10.1007/s10433-012-0236-6. eCollection 2012 Dec.
Recent evidence suggests negative associations between received social support and emotional well-being. So far, these studies mainly focused on younger adults. Quantity and quality of social support changes with age; therefore, this study investigated whether there are age differences regarding the association between received social support and positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Moreover, it was tested whether these age effects might be due to a differential effectiveness of different sources of support for younger and older individuals. Forty-two individuals (21 younger adults, aged 21-40 and 21 older adults, aged 61-73) completed 30-daily diaries on their received social support, PA/NA and the sources of support provision. Data were analyzed using multilevel modeling. Results indicated age-related differential effects: for younger individuals, received social support was negatively associated with indicators of emotional well-being, whereas these associations were positive for older respondents. Regarding NA, these effects held when testing lagged predictions and controlling for previous-day affect. No age differences emerged regarding the associations between different sources of support and indicators of affect. Conceptual implications of these age-differential findings are discussed.
近期证据表明，感知到的社会支持与情绪幸福感之间存在负相关。到目前为止，这些研究主要集中在年轻人身上。社会支持的数量和质量会随着年龄而变化；因此，本研究调查了在感知到的社会支持与积极情感（PA）和消极情感（NA）之间的关联方面是否存在年龄差异。此外，还测试了这些年龄效应是否可能是由于不同支持来源对年轻人和老年人的有效性不同所致。42名个体（21名年轻人，年龄在21至40岁之间，21名老年人，年龄在61至73岁之间）完成了为期30天的关于他们感知到的社会支持、积极情感/消极情感以及支持提供来源的日记记录。使用多层模型对数据进行了分析。结果表明存在与年龄相关的差异效应：对于年轻人来说，感知到的社会支持与情绪幸福感指标呈负相关，而对于老年受访者来说，这些关联是正相关的。关于消极情感，在测试滞后预测并控制前一天的情感时，这些效应依然存在。在不同支持来源与情感指标之间的关联方面未出现年龄差异。讨论了这些年龄差异结果的概念性含义。
