Promoting Well-Being Across Adulthood: The Role of Conflict Avoidance

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed five-year plan will train the candidate and foster her launch into an independent interdisciplinary research career. The candidate's overall research goal is to identify links between biological indicators of stress, coping behaviors and daily psychological well-being. It is important to first identify the most effective coping behaviors so that they can be later targeted in interventions. The plan includes three steps: 1) enhance knowledge of biological systems involved in stress response and biological indicators of stress, 2) collect daily diary data to examine links between biological indicators of stress, coping with interpersonal tensions, and daily psychological well-being, 3) use the knowledge gained to write an R01 to examine biological indicators of stress, coping strategies and implications for later mental and physical illness. Interpersonal tensions are the most common and detrimental source of stress for well-being. Research indicates that people are most likely to use avoidance (e.g., do nothing) to deal with interpersonal problems and the use of avoidance increases with age, but there is a lack of research on the implications of daily avoidance. The proposed research will assess how people respond to daily tensions, whether responses vary across adulthood, and associations between coping strategies, biological indicators of stress, and well-being. The daily diary project will include a regionally representative sample of 108 adults ages 40 to 80+ from the Detroit Tri-County area. Participants will complete a baseline interview regarding social relationships, demographics, and personality followed by daily phone interviews regarding tensions each night for 14 days. On days 6 through 9, participants will provide salivary samples four times a day (waking, 30 minutes after waking, before lunch, and bed time) as well as salivary samples after they experience interpersonal tensions all of which will be analyzed for cortisol, DHEA-S, and alpha-amylase. It is predicted that older people will report greater avoidance and that avoidance will be more highly associated with well-being (lower cortisol, higher DHEA-S, lower alpha-amylase, higher self-reported well-being) among older adults. It is also hypothesized that certain types of avoidance are more beneficial (e.g., accepting the situation) than others (e.g., walking away) for well-being. This study will be the first to identify the types of daily interpersonal coping strategies that are beneficial/harmful for well-being. These goals parallel the National Institutes on Aging missions to: 1) improve the health and quality of life of older people; and 2) understand the biological and psychological pathways through which social relationships may influence health. This project is relevant for public health because negative relations and chronic stress are associated with health problems including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression. Thus, identifying the most beneficial coping strategies will help to improve the health and well-being of adults as they age.