Dynamics of Adaptation in Very Old Age: Within-Person and Across-Partner Processes in the Daily Lives of Couples

鉴于这部分人口的快速增长，了解高龄个体如何适应日常生活挑战是关键。借鉴发展语境主义(Bronfenbrenner，1979)的概念，我们将回答以下三组问题。首先，考虑到高龄是构成适应能力测试极限的(内生)情境，我们认为高龄时无处不在的身心衰退可以精确地定位各种个体水平的动态特征和过程(例如，情绪变异性、应激反应、情绪调节等)。支持或阻碍个人的日常运作。因此，我们会搜集和研究高龄人士的资料。第二，考虑到老年人配偶的微观系统是一个提供负担和制约日常功能的(外生)环境，我们认为近端的环境因素，如二重水平的过程(例如，情绪传染、任务协作)，可以作为克服挑战的社会资源或风险因素。因此，我们将研究和收集年事已高的配偶的数据。第三，考虑到个体和配偶的日常生活背景被嵌入到成年期的更广泛的发展中，我们预计内源性和外源性适应过程的配置已经被先前的个体发育塑造，并将影响未来的个体发育。为了分析日常生活过程，我们将收集动态评估的微观纵向数据。为了检查与个体发育的联系，我们将把该项目纳入一项正在进行的宏观纵向研究，即位于德国经济研究所的德国社会经济小组研究。总而言之，这些见解有望让我们了解为什么有些人比其他人更成功地变老，并为设计支持老年人优化其发育最后阶段的能力的干预措施提供了基础。

Understanding how very old individuals adapt to daily life challenges is key given the rapid growth of this segment of the population. Drawing on notions from developmental contextualism (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), we will address the following three sets of questions. First, considering very old age to be an (endogenous) context that constitutes a testing-the-limits situation for adaptive capacities, we propose that the omnipresent physical and mental decrements in very old age allow pinpointing of a variety of individual-level dynamic characteristics and processes (e.g., emotion variability, stress reactivity, emotion regulation, etc.) that support or hinder individuals in their day-to-day functioning. Hence, we will collect and study data from very old persons. Second, considering the micro-system of spouse of older adults as an (exogenous) context that provides affordances and constraints on daily functioning, we propose that proximal environmental factors such as dyad-level processes (e.g., emotional contagion, task collaboration) serve as social resource or risk factors for overcoming challenges. We will thus study and collect data from very old spouses. Third, considering that individual and spousal daily-life contexts are embedded in the broader development in adulthood, we expect that configurations of endogenous and exogenous adaptation processes have been shaped by prior ontogenetic development and will influence future ontogenetic development. To analyze daily-life processes, we will collect ambulatory-assessment micro-longitudinal data. To examine linkages to ontogenetic development, we will integrate the project into an ongoing macro-longitudinal study, namely the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, SOEP, that is located at the German Institute for Economic Research, DIW. Collectively, the insights gained promise to inform our understanding of why some individuals age more successfully than others and to provide a foundation for designing interventions that support the ability of older adults to optimize their final stages of development.