Positive affect measured using ecological momentary assessment and survival in older men and women

Abstract

Links between positive affect (PA) and health have predominantly been investigated by using measures of recollected emotional states. Ecological momentary assessment is regarded as a more precise measure of experienced well-being. We analyzed data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, a representative cohort of older men and women living in England. PA was assessed by aggregating momentary assessments over a single day in 3,853 individuals aged 52 to 79 y who were followed up for an average of 5 y. Respondents in the lowest third of PA had a death rate of 7.3%, compared with 4.6% in the medium-PA group and 3.6% in the high-PA group. Cox proportional-hazards regression showed a hazard ratio of 0.498 (95% confidence interval, 0.345-0.721) in the high-PA compared with the low-PA group, adjusted for age and sex. This was attenuated to 0.646 (95% confidence interval, 0.436-0.958) after controlling for demographic factors, negative affect, depressed mood, health indicators, and health behaviors. Negative affect and depressed mood were not related to survival after adjustment for covariates. These findings indicate that experienced PA, even over a single day, has a graded relationship with survival that is not caused by baseline health status or other covariates. Momentary PA may be causally related to survival, or may be a marker of underlying biological, behavioral, or temperamental factors, although reverse causality cannot be conclusively ruled out. The results endorse the value of assessing experienced affect, and the importance of evaluating interventions that promote happiness in older populations.positive well-being | mortality | aging S ubjective well-being is being increasingly seen as an indicator of societal progress (1), and some countries are beginning to establish national well-being surveys (2). There is evidence that positive affective states and other measures of well-being are associated prospectively with longer survival and reduced risk of diseases of older age (3-9). Effects are maintained after initial health status and established risk factors are taken into account, and may also be independent of negative states such as depression (3, 10).To date, studies relating positive well-being with mortality have mainly relied on assessments of recollected emotional states, in which people are asked to rate their feelings of happiness or well-being in general, either without any time frame (5,6,9,11,12) or over a specific time period such as the previous 4 wk (4,8,10,13,14). Psychological research has established that recollected affect may diverge from actual experience because it is influenced by errors in recollection, recall biases, focusing illusions, and salient memory heuristics (15,16). This "memoryexperience gap" between life as it is remembered and life as it is experienced may be important to the processes through which the past impacts on future behavior (17).Methods of overcoming the limitations of retrospective measures include the use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) (18), ...

A functional genomic perspective on human well-being

“…These findings mirror results from previous studies of adverse experience in identifying a similar set of target cells (34,36,41,42), with eudaimonic well-being in particular showing a reversal of CTRA-related transcription factor dynamics (12,33). These results identify specific psychological, cellular, and molecular targets for future analyses of the social signal transduction pathways that mediate the prospective health advantages of psychological well-being (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11).…”

“…social genomics | gene regulation P sychological well-being has been shown to forecast future physical health above and beyond its association with current physical health (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6), and above and beyond its association with reduced levels of stress, depression, and other negative affective states (2,3,(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11). However, the biological basis for this relationship remains poorly understood, in part because of a paucity of information regarding the molecular signaling pathways that transduce positive psychological states into somatic physiology (12), and in part because of the multidimensional nature of human well-being (6,13).…”

Estimating the influence of life satisfaction and positive affect on later income using sibling fixed effects

“…Research that considers the potential benefits of variation in life satisfaction or positive affect is part of a fairly new avenue in the study of human well-being. Although most research in this literature has studied the determinants of happiness, recently there has been growing interest in the broader benefits that happiness may induce (10,29,37). For policymakers, the existence of these mechanisms raises the possibility that a happier society may be one that intrinsically generates higher incomes for its citizens.…”

“…Life satisfaction, conversely, refers to a longer-term evaluation of one's life. Although measures of positive affect and life satisfaction correlate-and load onto a common genetic factor (27)-they show varying salience in different circumstances of people's lives, including in their relationship to income and age (1,28,29). None of the previous studies considered the dual effect of emotional well-being and life satisfaction on later income, even though Kahneman and Deaton (1) conclude that the effect of income on positive affect is less pronounced (and ceases beyond an annual income of ∼$75,000) compared with the effect of income on life satisfaction.…”

News from NIH: translational research for an aging population

“…Measures of well-being extend the concept of health beyond the mere presence or absence of illness or disability to incorporate the notion of positive health and functioning, which has typically received limited attention in the health sciences. Recent findings from NIA-supported studies have uncovered buffering effects of psychological well-being on inflammation among individuals with low education [10], a positive association between daily experiences of positive affect and longevity [11], and links between purpose in life and reduced risk of mortality [12], Alzheimer's disease [13], and disability [14], after taking background health and demographic factors into account. The NIA welcomes applications that introduce well-being metrics into interventions to assess their impact on psychological health and quality of life as well as applications on themes outlined in a recent RFA co-funded by the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine on Subjective Well-being: Advances in Measurement and Applications to Aging (see: RFA-AG-11-003).…”