Maintenance of Positive Affect Following Pain in Older Adults

描述（由申请人提供）：高达80%的65岁以上的人报告经历了某种程度的身体疼痛，但老年人似乎非常善于在面对疼痛时保持积极的情绪。虽然研究发现，老年人至少与年轻人一样善于管理疼痛，但他们使用的策略在很大程度上仍然未知。在社会情感选择性框架的指导下，该框架假定老年人战略性地使用积极性增强机制，拟议的研究的主要目的是调查老年人和年轻人在使用积极性机制以保持积极影响方面是否存在差异。此外，人们对使一些老年人比其他人更能科普疼痛的因素知之甚少。先前的研究表明，高水平的执行功能（EF）和心率变异性（HRV）预测那些经历疼痛的人的身体健康结果是积极的，但迄今为止还没有研究探讨这些因素的个体差异如何与疼痛相互作用，以影响积极的影响。因此，该项目的第二个目的是测试EF或HRV是否会调节老年人疼痛和维持积极情感之间的关系。该项目的两个目标都有助于实现一个更大的目标，即扩大对老年人健康和心理健康因素的理论知识。拟议的项目将使PI获得宝贵的技能，并通过使用实验室和档案数据来测试与这两个目标有关的假设，扩大他以前的研究经验。在实验室研究中，将要求老年人和年轻人提供情感、EF和HRV数据。他们将被随机分配到一个痛苦或非痛苦的任务。在疼痛任务之后，参与者将接受评估积极机制的任务，然后被要求提供最终的情感评级。社区居住的老年人的纵向数据集将被用来测试疼痛水平是否与人们的EF相互作用，以预测积极的影响。假设1）当疼痛时，老年人将比年轻人更成功地使用积极增强机制; 2）老年人在疼痛后比年轻人更好地保持积极情绪; 3）EF和HRV更好的人在面对疼痛时最有效地保持积极情绪。除了提供理论上的洞察力如何保持积极的影响后疼痛，该项目将有助于促进健康研究的多样性B提供PI -西班牙裔第一代大学生-一个培训机会，以发展成为一个独立的研究人员所需的技能更大的目标。为此，该项目包括一个详细的计划，旨在建立和扩大PI的能力，传播前沿研究，学习新的统计和方法技术，并扩大他的研究计划的心理和生理后果的痛苦的经验。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Up to 80% of those over age 65 report experiencing some degree of physical pain, yet older adults appear remarkably adept at maintaining positive emotionality in the face of pain. Whereas studies find that older adults are at least as good at managing pain as their younger counterparts, the strategies they use to do so remain largely unknown. Guided by a socio-emotional selectivity framework which posits that older adults strategically use positivity-enhancing mechanisms, the proposed research has a primary aim of investigating whether older and younger adults differ in their use of positivity mechanisms to maintain positive affect in the face of pain. Additionally, little is known about the factors that make some older adults better able to cope with pain than others. Previous research has shown that high levels of executive functioning (EF) and heart rate variability (HRV) predict positive physical health outcomes for those experiencing pain, but no research to date has examined how individual differences in these factors interact with pain to influence positive affect. Thus, the proposed project has a second aim of testing whether EF or HRV moderate the relationship between pain and maintenance of positive affect in older adults. Both of the aims of the project contribute to a larger goal of expanding theoretical knowledge of factors contributing to health and psychological wellbeing in older age. The proposed project will allow the PI to gain invaluable skills and expand on his previous research experiences by using experimental laboratory and archival data to test hypotheses pertaining to both aims. In the laboratory study, older and younger adults will be asked to provide affect, EF, and HRV data. They will be randomly assigned to a painful or non-painful task. After the pain task, participants will undergo tasks assessing positivity mechanisms and will then be asked to provide a final affect rating. An archival longitudinal dataset of community-dwelling older adults will be used to test whether pain levels interact with EF within people to predict positive affect. It is hypothesized that 1) when i pain, older adults will use positivity-enhancing mechanisms with greater success than younger adults; 2) older adults will maintain positive affect following pain better than younger adults; an 3) those with better EF and HRV will be most effective at maintaining positive affect in the face of pain. In addition to providing theoretical insight into how positive affect is maintained after pain, the project will contribute to a larger objective of promoting diversity in health research b providing the PI - a Hispanic first generation college student - a training opportunity to develop the skills necessary to become an independent researcher. To this end, the project includes a detailed plan designed to build on and expand the PI's ability to disseminate cutting-edge research, learn novel statistical and methodological techniques, and expand his research program on the psychological and physiological consequences of the pain experience.