Older adults were seen to be able to predict stressful events at home, when compared to younger adults; however older adults were unable to use those insights to reduce the impact of stress.

‘An older person may be able to predict home-related stress but may not necessarily be adept in foreseeing the implications of those stressful events.’

"This suggests that younger adults are doing a better job of using some anticipatory coping skills to blunt the impact of home stressors - though there was one clear exception."




The study involved having 107 adults aged 18-36 and 116 adults aged 60-90 complete a survey on eight consecutive days related to stressors, mood, the extent to which they predicted experiencing stress the following day, and how - if at all - they were using anticipatory coping mechanisms to prepare for those stressors.
"We found that accurately predicting home stressors had very little impact on the mood of older adults," Neupert says. "But it had a dramatically positive impact on younger adults. The one exception was for younger adults who got stuck in so-called stagnant deliberation."
Stagnant deliberation is when people try to solve a problem but feel like they're not making progress.
"It's kind of like running in place mentally, and we found that younger adults who engaged in stagnant deliberation had a steep increase in negative affect when the home stressor happened," Neupert says.
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"This really highlights the distinctions between age groups when it comes to predicting and responding to stress in particular contexts," Neupert says. "For example, this study also looked at stress in the workplace, and we found little difference across age groups. But in the home, the differences were dramatic."
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Source-Eurekalert