Communicative Ecology Model Of Successful Aging Research Articles

Explicating the Pathways Among Memorable Message Themes About Religion and Spirituality, Positive Role Models for Aging, and Successful Aging

ABSTRACT Grounded in the communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA), this study asked older adults to report on a memorable message about religion or spirituality. The message themes were tested as directly predicting perceptions of the message source as a positive role model for aging and indirectly predicting successful aging. Messages with an ethical actions theme, personal relationship with God theme, and eternal damnation theme were directly associated with perceptions of the source as a positive role model. Further, messages with an eternal damnation theme were indirectly associated with successful aging, via perceptions of the source as a positive role model and aging efficacy. Findings address how religious memorable messages and role models for aging might operate in the CEMSA.

Expanding the Boundary Conditions of the Communicative Ecology Model of Successful Aging to Include Communication About Religion

This study expanded the communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA) to include communication about religion. Older adults ( N = 272, MAge = 64.96 years) reported on the most important memorable message about religion that has shaped their lives, as well as on their own religious communication (i.e., religious helping and seeking religious support). Memorable messages with a theme of (a) developing a personal relationship with God and (b) eternal damnation were associated with higher and lower perceptions of memorable message motivational effect, respectively. Perceived memorable message motivational effect, religious helping, and seeking religious support were indirectly associated with successful aging, via aging efficacy. Communication about religion is a worthwhile theoretical addition to the CEMSA. The use of multiple sources of data—namely the memorable message themes (as coded by outside research assistants) and subjective aging experiences (as self-reported by older adults)—is also a noteworthy methodological contribution to CEMSA research.

Implications of Older Adults’ Attributions for Young Adults’ Attitudes to Aging: A Vignette Study

The present study was grounded in the revised communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA) and examined whether brief, passing remarks made by older adults about aging influence both young adults’ aging efficacy and their expectations regarding aging. Young adult participants ( n = 322) were randomly assigned to read a single vignette. In the vignette an older adult invoked either a negative age-based reason, a non-age-based reason, or a positive age-based reason to account for behavior that could be taken to reflect age-related stereotypes pertaining to physical decline, cognitive decline, or aversion to technology. Analyzes revealed that participants who read the positive age-based accounts perceived the aging process to have been portrayed more favorably. Consequently, they reported higher levels of positive affect about aging which translated into their feeling more efficacious about managing their own aging, and into having more positive expectations regarding aging in general.

Extending the communicative ecology model of successful aging using talk about careers and retirement

ABSTRACT Given the emphasis on work in American lives, this study extended the communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA) by testing two new domains of communication about aging: career meaning and preparing for retirement (N = 340 older adults). Findings supported many of the proposed paths including negative environmental chatter to negative affect, uncertainty, and both domains of communication. Positive environmental chatter was associated with positive affect, efficacy, and both domains. In both models, uncertainty was positively associated with negative affect and inversely with positive affect. Efficacy was consistently related to successful aging. Finally, the effect of positive environmental chatter on successful aging was serially mediated by career meaning, negative affect, and efficacy. Results offer theoretical and practical implications.

Older adults’ perceptions of their own and their romantic partners’ age-related communication and their associations with aging well, depressive symptoms, and alcohol use disorder symptoms

Guided by the communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA), this study examined how older adults’ and their romantic partners’ age-related communication indirectly predicts older adults’ perceptions of aging well, depressive symptoms, and alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms, via aging efficacy. Older adults were profiled as engaged, bantering, and disengaged agers. Romantic partners were profiled as engaged, bantering–high health, disengaged, and gloomy agers. Bantering older adults, disengaged older adults, and older adults with disengaged partners reported lower perceptions of aging well and more depressive symptoms, via lower aging efficacy (relative to engaged older adults and older adults with engaged partners). Also relative to engaged older adults, disengaged older adults reported more AUD symptoms, via lower aging efficacy. The indirect association involving AUD symptoms suggests that the CEMSA’s boundary conditions might be expanded to include more objective variants of successful aging. Results also suggest the merit of future family studies on how age-related communication might predict successful aging.

Older Adults’ Recalled Memorable Messages about Aging and Their Associations with Successful Aging

Abstract Using the Communicative Ecology Model of Successful Aging (CEMSA), this study examined how one’s own age-related communication and memorable message characteristics indirectly predict successful aging, via aging efficacy. Older adults with higher dispositional hope recalled memorable messages as (a) higher in positivity, (b) higher in efficacy, and (c) more likely to contain a theme of aging not being important or being a subjective state that can be overcome with the right mindset. Older adults were classified as engaged, bantering, or disengaged agers, based on their own age-related communication. Uniquely for CEMSA’s development and the blended role of hope theory within it, memorable message efficacy indirectly predicted greater successful aging, via heightened aging efficacy.

Older Adults’ Age-Related Communication and Routine Dietary Habits

ABSTRACT Using the communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA), this study examined whether or not older adults’ ways of communicating about a variety of age-related issues (e.g., making age-related excuses for their shortcomings, teasing other people about their age) predict older adults’ dietary habits. Participants were classified as engaged, bantering, and disengaged agers based on their own patterns of age-related communication. The probability of being an engaged ager positively predicted fruit consumption and negatively predicted soft drink consumption. The probability of being a bantering ager negatively predicted vegetable consumption. Results suggest the potential to expand the CEMSA’s boundary conditions to include routine dietary habits. Future researchers can build on these findings by utilizing additional methods to assess dietary habits and testing whether or not dietary habits mediate the associations between age-related communication and a variety of health problems.

Effects of “Environmental Chatter” about Age and Aging on Middle-Aged and Older Adults’ Communication and Perceptions of Aging Efficacy

Grounded in the communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA), this study examined how social messages individuals encounter about age predicted efficacy regarding aging. Data from N = 283 middle-aged and older American adults were analyzed via path analyses. Explicit messages about aging, the presence of positive and negative role models for aging, and the degree to which intergenerational interaction was experienced as accommodative and nonaccommodative predicted how participants themselves communicated about aging. Having positive role models and quality of intergenerational interaction also predicted self-reports of efficacy related to aging.

Older Parents’ and Middle-Aged Children’s Communication as Predictors of Children’s Successful Aging

The communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA) examines how people’s language and communication surrounding the aging process (e.g., making age-related excuses) predicts successful aging. Using the CEMSA, this study examined how middle-aged U.S. American children’s and their parents’ age-related communication predicts children’s subjective perceptions of their own successful aging, via children’s aging efficacy. Three communication profiles emerged for children and their parents, namely engaged, bantering, and disengaged agers. Path analysis revealed that parents’ age-related communication predicted children’s successful aging, via children’s aging efficacy. Relative to children with disengaged parents, children with bantering parents were more likely to be efficacious with respect to their aging, which in turn positively predicted successful aging. The language and communication people observe from older family members may be consequential in shaping their aging trajectories for the better or worse.

Communication and successful aging: Testing alternative conceptualizations of uncertainty

ABSTRACTThe communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA), which theorizes how people’s communication can influence their experiences of successful aging, takes as axiomatic that aging involves uncertainty. In two studies, with data from the U.S. and the U.K., we compared the viability of two conceptualizations of uncertainty about aging in the CEMSA: the model’s original operationalization, uncertainty discrepancy, and an alternative, the perceived probability of negative experiences (PPNE) associated with aging. In both studies, uncertainty discrepancy and PPNE contributed independently to attitudes toward aging; PPNE emerged as a stronger predictor of people’s affective reactions to aging. These findings underscore the importance of multifaceted views of uncertainty for scholars of communication and aging.

Profiling Younger Adults’ Communication About Aging

According to the Communicative Ecology Model of Successful Aging (CEMSA), how people talk about age can have implications for how they cope with aging later in life. However, most research on communication and successful aging has focused on older adults. In this study, we use latent class analysis to profile how younger adults (age 18–39) communicate about aging and examine how these profiles relate to their attitudes toward aging (affect, efficacy, anxiety, and perceptions of successful aging). Consistent with past research on older adults, we found three distinct profiles of communication behavior (disengaged, engaged, and bantering). An engaged profile was clearly associated with the most positive attitudes toward aging, while a disengaged profile was associated with the least positive attitudes. These findings suggest that patterns of talk about aging may start early in life, underscoring the importance of studying communication about aging across the lifespan.

The Role of Communication in Aging Well: Introducing the Communicative Ecology Model of Successful Aging

This study introduces the communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA). The CEMSA is predicated on the belief that individuals have agency over the aging process and, through communicative practices, construct ecologies within which they are able to age more successfully. According to the model, uncertainty about aging stimulates affective and communicative responses, and, in turn, perceived efficacy to manage growing older. These feelings of efficacy are hypothesized to determine the judgment that one is aging successfully. Hypotheses were tested via structural equation modeling using data from 458 middle-aged and older New Zealanders. Three of seven communicative behaviors investigated had significant indirect effects on successful aging via affect and/or efficacy. This study concludes by suggesting a future research agenda and theoretical refinements relating to the role of uncertainty which, although predictive of affect and efficacy, was less effective as a predictor of communicative behavior.

What Does Successful Aging Sound Like? Profiling Communication About Aging

We draw on the recently developed communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA) to examine how adults communicate about aging and how these communication patterns relate to experiences of successful aging. Using latent class analysis across 2 datasets collected in New Zealand and the United States, we identify 3 distinct classes of agers (disengaged, engaged, and bantering) defined by different profiles of communication behavior. Across samples, an engaged profile was generally associated with the most positive experiences of aging, whereas a disengaged profile was associated with the least positive experiences, although these differences were surprisingly small. Our results highlight the diverse ways in which individuals communicatively engage with the process of aging and experience aging as positive and successful.