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Physical Hardiness and Styles of Socioemotional Functioning in Later Life

¹ Department of Psychology, Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York.
² Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada.

Address correspondence to Carol Magai, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Long Island University, 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11201. E-mail: cmagai{at}liu.edu

Although the aging literature suggests that there are many paths to later life adjustment, there have been few empirical attempts to identify different patterns of adaptation, or their relation to adaptive outcome. As a way to identify patterns of socioemotional functioning in later life associated with physical hardiness, a cluster analysis was applied to 11 measures of socioemotional functioning in a large sample (N = 1,085) of older adults (65–86 years). Ten subgroups were extracted, with clusters of individuals being primarily defined by social network variables, religious characteristics, and emotion profiles. Groups were then compared on a measure of physical hardiness. Patterns of adaptation characterized by high levels of negative emotions tended to represent less hardy adaptation, although there were nonetheless some patterns of noteworthy exception. In contrast, however, patterns of adaptation characterized by religiosity were typically associated with greater hardiness. Finally, physical hardiness was not exclusively the province of individuals exhibiting close social networks, with some groups high in connectedness being less likely to report high hardiness.

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