Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gvh9x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T22:10:29.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Secondary Control Belief Combinations (Adjustment and Acceptance) and Well-Being in Older Adults*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2013

Audrey U. Swift  and
Judith G. Chipperfield
Audrey U. Swift*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba
Judith G. Chipperfield
Affiliation:
Faculty of Arts, University of Manitoba
*
†Correspondence and requests for offprints should be sent to / La correspondance et les demandes de tirés-à-part doivent être addressees: Audrey Swift, Ph.D. Department of Community Health Sciences Faculty of Medicine University of Manitoba T148 – 770 Bannatyne Avenue Winnipeg, MB R3E 0W3 (Audrey.Swift@med.umanitoba.ca)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Few studies of older individuals have directly assessed secondary control beliefs, previously defined by Morling and Evered in 2006 as a combination of psychological adjustment and acceptance. We classified older adults (n = 223, M age = 85 years, 62% women) into three categories of secondary control beliefs: psychological adjustment only, psychological adjustment and acceptance, and neither psychological adjustment nor acceptance. Relative to individuals who emphasized beliefs about psychological adjustment only, those who emphasized a combination of secondary control beliefs (including both psychological adjustment and acceptance), reported more frequent positive emotions, greater life satisfaction, and less severe chronic conditions. Our findings have implications in both theoretical and applied contexts. Theoretically, our findings extend contemporary thinking on secondary control. In applied contexts, they suggest ways of thinking that could enhance well-being in the very old.

Résumé

Peu d’études sur les personnes âgées ont evalué directement les croyances de contrôle secondaires, défini auparavant par Morling et Evered en 2006 comme une combinaison de l’ajustement psychologique et de l’acceptation. Nous avons classé les personnes âgées (n = 223, M – age de 85 ans, 62% femmes) en trois catégories, selon leurs croyances de contrôle secondaires: l’ajustement psychologique seulement, l’ajustement psychologique et l’acceptation, et ni l’ajustement psychologique ni l’acceptation. Par rapport aux personnes qui ont insisté sur croyances au sujet de l’ajustement psychologique seulement, ceux qui ont souligné une combinaison de croyances de contrôle secondaires—incluant à la fois l’ajustement psychologique et l’acceptation—ont rapporté les émotions positives plus fréquentes, une plus grande satisfaction de vie et les maladies chroniques moins sévères. Nos résultats ont des implications dans les deux contextes, théoriques et appliquées. Théoriquement, nos résultats s’étendent la réflexion contemporaine sur le contrôle secondaire. Dans les paramètres appliqués, ils suggèrent des façons de penser qui peuvent améliorer le bien-être parmi les tres vieux.

Keywords

agingadjustmentacceptancehealthsecondary controlwell-beingvieillissmentajustement psychologiqueacceptationsantécommande secondairebien-être
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 349 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Financial support for this research was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in the form of a Canada Graduate Scholarship to Audrey U. Swift and an operating grant to Judith G. Chipperfield (200609MOP-165097-SDA-CDAA-49702).

References

Affleck, G., Tennen, H., Croog, S., & Levine, S. (1987). Causal attribution, perceived control, and recovery from a heart attack. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 5(3), 339–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Band, E. B., & Weisz, J. R. (1990). Developmental differences in primary and secondary control coping and adjustment to juvenile diabetes. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 19(2), 150–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, C. S., Pozo, C., Harris, S. D., & Noriega, V. (1993). How coping mediates the effect of optimism on distress: A study of women with early stage breast cancer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 375–390.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chipperfield, J. G., Campbell, D. W., & Perry, R. P. (2004). Stability in perceived control: Implications for health among very old community-dwelling adults. Journal of Aging and Health, 16(1), 116–147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chipperfield, J. G., Havens, B., & Doig, W. D. (1997). Method and description of the Aging in Manitoba project: A 20-year longitudinal study. Canadian Journal on Aging, 16(4), 606–625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chipperfield, J. G., Newall, N. E., Chuchmach, L. P., Swift, A. U., & Haynes, T. L. (2008). Differential determinants of men’s and women’s everyday physical activity in later life. The Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 63(4), S211–S218.Google ScholarPubMed
Chipperfield, J. G., Newall, N. E., Perry, R. P., Bailis, D. S., Stewart, T. L., & Ruthig, J. C. (2012). Sense of control in late life: Health and survival implications. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1081–1092.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chipperfield, J. G., Perry, R. P., Bailis, D. S., Ruthig, J. C., & Chuchmach, L. P. (2007). Gender differences in use of primary and secondary control strategies in older adults with major health problems. Psychology & Health, 22(1), 83–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chipperfield, J. G., Perry, R. P., & Menec, V. H. (1999). Primary and secondary control-enhancing strategies: Implications for health in later life. Journal of Aging and Health, 11(4), 517–539.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chipperfield, J. G., Perry, R. P., & Weiner, B. (2003). Discrete emotions in later life. The Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 58, 23–34.Google ScholarPubMed
Croog, S. H., & Levine, S. (1982). Life after a heart attack: Social and psychological factors eight years later. New York, NY: Human Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Fiori, K. L., Antonucci, T. C., & Cortina, K. S. (2006). Social network typologies and mental health among older adults. The Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 61(1), 25–32.Google ScholarPubMed
Grootenhuis, M. A., & Last, B. F. (1997). Predictors of parental emotional adjustment to childhood cancer. Psycho-oncology, 6, 115–128.3.0.CO;2-D>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hall, N. C., Chipperfield, J. G., Perry, R. P., Ruthig, J. C., & Goetz, T. (2006). Primary and secondary control in academic development: Gender-specific implications for stress and health in college students. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 19(2), 189–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynes, T. L., Heckhausen, J., Chipperfield, J. G., Newall, N. E., & Perry, R. P. (2009). Primary and secondary control strategies: Implications for health and well-being among older adults. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 28(2), 165–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huberty, C. J., Jordan, E. M., & Brandt, C. (2005). Cluster analysis in higher education research. In Smart, J. (Ed.), Handbook of higher education. Memphis, TN: Algora Press.Google Scholar
Kaiser, H. F. (1960). The application of electronic computers to factor analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20(1), 141–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McQuillen, A. D., Licht, M. H., & Licht, B. G. (2003). Contributions of disease severity and perceptions of primary and secondary control to the prediction of psychosocial adjustment to Parkinson’s disease. Health Psychology, 22(5), 504–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milligan, G. W., & Cooper, M. C. (1987). Methodology review - clustering methods. Applied Psychological Measurement, 11(4), 329–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morling, B., & Evered, S. (2006). Secondary control reviewed and defined. Psychological Bulletin, 132(2), 269–296.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neugarten, B. L., Havighurst, R. J., & Tobin, S. S. (1961). The measurement of life satisfaction. Journal of Gerontology, 16, 134–143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Newall, N. E., Chipperfield, J. G., Daniels, L. M., Hladkyj, S., & Perry, R. P. (2009). Regret in later life: Exploring relationships between regret frequency, secondary interpretive control beliefs, and health in older individuals. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 68(4), 261–288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pearlin, L. I., & Schooler, C. (1978). The structure of coping. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19(1), 2–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reed, G. M., Taylor, S. E., & Kemeny, M. E. (1993). Perceived control and psychological adjustment in gay men with AIDS. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 23(10), 791–824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, S. J., Hayes, J. R., & Peterson, R. A. (1987). Revising the seriousness of illness rating scale: Modernization and re-standardization. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 17(1), 85–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rothbaum, F., Weisz, J., & Snyder, S. (1982). Changing the world and changing the self: A two-process model of perceived control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 5–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stevens, J. P. (2002). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (4th ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Swift, A. U., Bailis, D. S., Chipperfield, J. G., Ruthig, J. C., & Newall, N. E. (2008). Gender differences in the adaptive influence of folk beliefs: A longitudinal study of life satisfaction in aging. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 40(2), 104–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szigethy, E., Kenney, E., Carpenter, J., Hardy, D. M., Fairclough, D., Bousvaros, A., et al. (2007). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease and subsyndromal depression. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 46(10), 1290–1298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2001). Using multivariate statistics (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. C., Collins, M. A., Newcomb, M. D., & Hunt, W. (1996). On fighting versus accepting stressful circumstances: Primary and secondary control among HIV-positive men in prison. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1307–1317.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson, S. C., Nanni, C., & Levine, A. (1994). Primary versus secondary and central versus consequence-related control in HIV-positive men. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 540–547.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ward, J. H. (1963). Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 58(301), 236–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weisz, J. R., McCabe, M. A., & Dennig, M. D. (1994). Primary and secondary control among children undergoing medical procedures: Adjustment as a function of coping style. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62(2), 324–332.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wyler, A. R., Masuda, M., & Holmes, T. H. (1968). Seriousness of illness rating scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11(4), 363–374.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed