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Associations between received social support and positive and negative affect: evidence for age differences from a daily-diary study

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Abstract

Recent evidence suggests negative associations between received social support and emotional well-being. So far, these studies mainly focused on younger adults. Quantity and quality of social support changes with age; therefore, this study investigated whether there are age differences regarding the association between received social support and positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Moreover, it was tested whether these age effects might be due to a differential effectiveness of different sources of support for younger and older individuals. Forty-two individuals (21 younger adults, aged 21–40 and 21 older adults, aged 61–73) completed 30-daily diaries on their received social support, PA/NA and the sources of support provision. Data were analyzed using multilevel modeling. Results indicated age-related differential effects: for younger individuals, received social support was negatively associated with indicators of emotional well-being, whereas these associations were positive for older respondents. Regarding NA, these effects held when testing lagged predictions and controlling for previous-day affect. No age differences emerged regarding the associations between different sources of support and indicators of affect. Conceptual implications of these age-differential findings are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all students who helped with data collection. While preparing this manuscript, the first author was partly funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P1_133632/1). The contribution by the third author was supported by the Foundation for Polish Science. Associations between received social support and PA and NA: Evidence for age differences from a daily-diary study

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Developmental & Health Psychology, University of Konstanz, P.O. Box 5560/14, 78457, Constance, Germany

    Urte Scholz

  2. University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Matthias Kliegel

  3. Trauma, Health, & Hazards Center at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO, USA

    Aleksandra Luszczynska

  4. Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland

    Aleksandra Luszczynska

  5. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Nina Knoll

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  1. Urte Scholz
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  2. Matthias Kliegel
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  3. Aleksandra Luszczynska
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  4. Nina Knoll
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Correspondence to Urte Scholz.

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Responsible Editor: H.-W. Wahl.

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Scholz, U., Kliegel, M., Luszczynska, A. et al. Associations between received social support and positive and negative affect: evidence for age differences from a daily-diary study. Eur J Ageing 9, 361–371 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-012-0236-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-012-0236-6

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