In previous studies, older as compared with younger individuals were more strongly motivated to regulate their momentary affect toward pleasant and calm states. Whether these motivational differences are also reflected in regulatory behavior and whether this behavior is efficient in terms of affect change, however, is unclear. To address these…

Erikson's (1950) model of adult psychosocial development outlines the significance of successful involvement within one's relationships, work, and community for healthy aging. He theorized that the consequences of not meeting developmental challenges included stagnation and emotional despair. Drawing on this model, the present study uses…

This study investigates whether age-related changes in the structure of 5 complex working memory (WM) tasks (a) reflect a general or domain specific system, (b) follows a similar trajectory across different age spans, and (c) contribute domain general or domain specific resources to achievement measures. The study parsed the sample (N = 2,471)…

Developmental processes are inherently time-related, with various time metrics and transition points being used to proxy how change is organized with respect to the theoretically underlying mechanisms. Using data from 4 Swedish studies of individuals aged 70-100+ (N = 453) who were measured every 2 years for up to 5 waves, we tested whether…

We examined the joint contributions of self-reported adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and recent life events (RLEs) to inflammation at midlife, by testing 3 competing theoretical models: stress generation, stress accumulation, and early life stress sensitization. We aimed to identify potential mediators between adversity and inflammation.…

We often need to infer unknown properties of objects from observable ones, just like detectives must infer guilt from observable clues and behavior. But how do inferential processes change with age? We examined young and older adults' reliance on rule-based and similarity-based processes in an inference task that can be considered either a…

Many social interactions require the synchronization--be it automatically or intentionally--of one's own behavior with that of others. Using a dyadic drumming paradigm, the authors delineate lifespan differences in interpersonal action synchronization (IAS). Younger children, older children, younger adults, and older adults in same- and mixed-age…

Examined developmental changes in time estimation among 5- to 99-year olds. Found that older adults and young children performed at lower levels than young adults; identified qualitative differences in error patterns of older adults and children. Proposed model of temporal generalization and bisection assuming developmental changes in noisiness of…