Browsing by Author "Ogletree, Aaron M."
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- Extending Terror Management Theory to Increase Understanding of Older Adults’ Views of DeathOgletree, Aaron M.; Blieszner, Rosemary (Virginia Tech, 2015-11-19)We applied Baltes’ lifespan development perspective to TMT to examine how experiences influence worldview change over time. We argue that worldview adaptations can bolster older adults against death threat and ameliorate death anxiety.
- Friendship in Later Life: A Research AgendaBlieszner, Rosemary; Ogletree, Aaron M.; Adams, Rebecca G. (Oxford University Press, 2019-01-01)Friendship is a relationship that can endure across the entire lifespan, serving a vital role for sustaining social connectedness in late life when other relationships may become unavailable. This article begins with a description of the importance of studying friendship in late life and the benefits of friendship for older adults, pointing to the value of additional research for enhancing knowledge about this crucial bond. Next is discussion of theoretical approaches for conceptualizing friendship research, followed by identification of emerging areas of late-life friendship research and novel questions that investigators could explore fruitfully. We include a presentation of innovative research methods and existing national and international data sets that can advance late-life friendship research using large samples and cross-national comparisons. The final section advocates for development and assessment of interventions aimed at improving friendship and reducing social isolation among older adults.
- Internet Addiction, Cognitive, and Dispositional Factors among US AdultsDevine, Diana; Ogletree, Aaron M.; Shah, Priti; Katz, Benjamin (Elsevier, 2022-05)While a growing body of literature has examined internet addiction in the context of psychological factors, most of this work has focused on younger populations outside of the United States. A sample of 898 US adults ranging from 18 to 76 years of age were recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform to complete the Internet Addiction Test and key measures of affect, disposition, and cognitive function. A series of multiple regressions were conducted to examine Internet Addiction level as a predictor of outcome variables. ANCOVAs with Fisher 's LSD post-hoc analyses were conducted using level of internet addiction as the grouping variable to examine differences between groups. Results found that Internet Addiction was a significant predictor of depression, impulsiveness, self-control, need for cognition, theories of cognitive abilities, creativity achievement, cognitive failures, smartphone use behaviors, mental rotation test, and cognitive reflection test. Further, even mild levels of internet addiction were associated with less optimal outcomes. Additionally, a significant relation between age and internet addiction also emerged such that older adults were less likely to have higher levels of internet addiction than younger adults. However, age did not appear to modulate the association between internet addiction status and key psychological variables. To further elucidate the mechanisms and impact of internet addiction throughout the life course, future studies should collect online and in-person data, from individuals across a variety of backgrounds, throughout the lifespan.
- The interplay of life stressors and coping resources: Implications for healthOgletree, Aaron M. (Virginia Tech, 2018-04-30)Adults aged 50 years and older are a growing segment of the population and are more likely than their younger counterparts to experience significant stressors such as the death of a relative or friend, onset of chronic conditions, and increased health burden. The current studies use Pearlin's stress process model to evaluate the impact of these stressors on outcomes of depression. Study 1 used Wave 1 data from the ORANJ BOWL research panel of 5,688 New Jersey residents aged 50 and older to explore the relationship between relational life events, private religious practices, and depressed mood. Cross-sectional structural equation modeling was used to evaluate these relationships. Results showed that relational life events had a significant positive influence on depressive symptoms and this relationship was partially mediated by private religious practices. Findings indicate that non-personal life events are important sources of stress that may otherwise be overlooked when assessing risk factors among older adults. Study 2 used data from 640 men from the Research on Older Adults with HIV (ROAH) study to evaluate the impact of HIV-related health burden on depressed mood and to assess the mitigating effects of social support adequacy. Structural equation modeling showed that greater health burden was associated with more depressive symptoms; this relationship was significantly partially mediated by emotional support adequacy, which was a measure of unmet social need. Findings indicate that health burden has a cumulative impact on psychological health and programs and supports that target social wellness can improve this relationship. These studies point to the importance of understanding sources of risk and resilience among older people and in an attempt to improve overall health outcomes.
- Perceptions of Death among Older Adults: Integrating Terror Management Theory and the Lifespan Development FrameworkOgletree, Aaron M. (Virginia Tech, 2015-05-01)Terror management theory (TMT) seeks to understand religious worldview adherence, positing that worldview beliefs can abate existential threats such as mortality salience. Most research on TMT has employed young samples, so influences on older adults' experiences of mortality salience are unclear. Simultaneously, research on death anxiety shows that older people may view their own death more favorably than younger individuals do. Guided by the lifespan development perspective, I investigated whether the range of life experiences and interpretation of them might account for perceptions of death in old age. A multi-phase content analysis of in-depth interview transcripts from 16 adults aged 65+ focused on narratives of life events, religious worldviews, and death. The findings suggested how lifespan adversity, such as the death of a loved one, promoted growth in self and religious belief that enhanced participants' reported relationship with the sacred. In turn, participants' views of and beliefs about death were without fear, indicating the influence of highly individualized and deeply spiritual religious worldview beliefs on the abatement of death fear. These findings support extension of TMT to older people by identifying the impact of lifespan experiences with trauma and adversity as contributing to less superficial, more individualized conceptions of religious worldviews. Such worldviews, contingent upon growth from adaptation to lifespan experiences, may indeed lead to less death anxiety and reduce the effects of mortality salience in old age.
- A Validation of the Life Satisfaction Scale in a Population of ADS ParticipantsOgletree, Aaron M.; Jarrott, Shannon E. (Virginia Tech, 2014-11-06)The objective of this research is to establish psychometric indicators for the LSS in a population of frail ADS participants.