A recent study finds that older adults are better than younger adults at anticipating stressful events at home – but older adults are not as good at using those predictions to reduce the adverse impacts of the stress.
A recent study finds that older adults are better than younger adults at anticipating stressful events at home – but older adults are not as good at using those predictions to reduce the adverse impacts of the stress.
“Home stress, in this context, might be related to chores, home maintenance and having too much to do around the house,” says Shevaun Neupert, an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper on the work. “Older adults – over the age of 60 – predicted and experienced more stressful events at home than younger adults. However, when younger adults – under the age of 36 – did predict these stressful events, those stressors had less of an adverse impact on their moods.
“This suggests that younger adults are doing a better job of using some anticipatory coping skills to blunt the impact of home stressors – though there was one clear exception.”
The study involved having 107 adults aged 18-36 and 116 adults aged 60-90 complete a survey on eight consecutive days related to stressors, mood, the extent to which they predicted experiencing stress the following day, and how – if at all – they were using anticipatory coping mechanisms to prepare for those stressors.
Read more at North Carolina State University
