Initially Negative Affect Predicts Lower Satisfaction With Future Social Contact: A Time-Lagged Analysis Using Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Prior research has linked subjective features of social situations with short-term changes in affect (e.g., across days, hours), but little is known about the directionality of such links. Our study examined the concurrent and lead-lag relationships between social contact satisfaction and affect in the flow of daily life. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), wherein 78 late-middle-aged and older adults reported on 2,739 social contacts (average 5.02 per day, SD = 2.95) across seven consecutive days, we examined how the level of social contact satisfaction was concurrently and prospectively associated with affect (high-arousal and low-arousal positive affect [PA], high-arousal and low-arousal negative affect [NA]). Higher contact satisfaction was concurrently associated with more high- and low-arousal PA and less high- and low-arousal NA. The influence of contact satisfaction remains for predicting greater low-arousal PA (quietness, calmness) during the next social contact. NA (either high- or low-arousal) predicted lower satisfaction during the next social contact, but such sustainable influence was not observed for PA. The study reveals a cycle in which elevated NA may trigger unsatisfactory social contact, which subsequently predicted less low-arousal PA such as quietness and calmness. Our study provided a more nuanced and differentiated picture of the temporal sequencing of everyday social contact and momentary affect. Practitioners may gain insights from our study into the development of just-in-time adaptive interventions that aim for the betterment of affective well-being in old age. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Citation

Huiying Liu, Boye Fang, Yuekang Li, Vivian W Q Lou. Initially Negative Affect Predicts Lower Satisfaction With Future Social Contact: A Time-Lagged Analysis Using Ecological Momentary Assessment. The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. 2021 Jan 18;76(2):295-305

Mesh Tags

PMID: 32060519

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