Social support and emotions in the elderly

Social support has become one of the most used constructs in coping research but there are still some controversies with respect to theoretical conceptualization, and the underlying working mechanism. To get some more detailed information about these mechanisms that either facilitate or debilitate coping efforts this study aims at looking into the dyadic coping process of couples who have to cope with the transition to retirement of one partner. In line with ideas of communal or dyadic concepts coping is conceptualized here as a communal process which focuses the fact that people usually do not cope in isolation but instead in social context. In the present study 51 couples filled in questionnaires once a year for a time period of 3 years. Results presented here refer to the first two measurement points and show the importance of emotions like anger and anxiety and of positive dyadic coping of the partner as predictors for coping efforts and emotions of the retiree one year later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)