The declining marginal utility of social time for subjective well-being

Enjoying the golden years: social participation and life satisfaction among Chinese older adults

Introduction

Older adults commonly face the risk of social isolation, which poses a significant threat to their quality of life. This study explores the association between social participation and life satisfaction among older Chinese adults.

Methods

Data were sourced from the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Regression analysis and mediation analysis were employed to examine the relationship between social participation and life satisfaction, with a focus on the roles of loneliness and self-rated health.

Results

The results indicate that social participation is significantly positively associated with older adults' life satisfaction. Furthermore, the positive association is more pronounced with increased diversity in social activities. Mediation analysis reveals that reductions in feelings of loneliness and improvements in health levels mediate the relationship between social participation and life satisfaction. Further analysis showed that social participation had a greater positive association among rural older adults and those lacking family companionship.

Discussion

This study provides evidence for enhancing life satisfaction among older adults and highlights the importance of diversity in social participation.

Having less means wanting more: Children hold an intuitive economic theory of diminishing marginal utility

Judgments surrounding resource acquisition and valuation are ubiquitous in daily life. How do humans decide what something is worth to themselves or someone else? One important cue to value is that of resource quantity. As described by economists, the principle of diminishing marginal utility (DMU) holds that as resource abundance increases, the value placed on each unit decreases; likewise, when resources become more scarce, the value placed on each unit rises. While prior research suggests that adults make judgments that align with this concept, it is unclear whether children do so. In Study 1 (n = 104), children (ages 5 through 8) were presented with scenarios involving losses or gains to others' resources and predicted the actions and emotions of the individuals involved. Participants made decisions that aligned with DMU, e.g., expecting individuals with fewer resources to expend more effort for an additional resource than individuals with greater resources. In Study 2 (n = 104), children incorporated information about preferences when inferring others' resource valuations, showing how quantity and preference are both included in children's inferences about others' utility. Our results indicate the early emergence of an intuitive economic theory that aligns with an important economic principle. Long before formal learning on this topic, children integrate quantity and preference information to sensibly predict others' resource valuations, with implications for economic decision-making, social preferences, and judgments of partner quality across the lifespan.

Discovering trends of social interaction behavior over time: An introduction to relational event modeling : Trends of social interaction

Real-life social interactions occur in continuous time and are driven by complex mechanisms. Each interaction is not only affected by the characteristics of individuals or the environmental context but also by the history of interactions. The relational event framework provides a flexible approach to studying the mechanisms that drive how a sequence of social interactions evolves over time. This paper presents an introduction of this new statistical framework and two of its extensions for psychological researchers. The relational event framework is illustrated with an exemplary study on social interactions between freshmen students at the start of their new studies. We show how the framework can be used to study: (a) which predictors are important drivers of social interactions between freshmen students who start interacting at zero acquaintance; (b) how the effects of predictors change over time as acquaintance increases; and (c) the dynamics between the different settings in which students interact. Findings show that patterns of interaction developed early in the freshmen student network and remained relatively stable over time. Furthermore, clusters of interacting students formed quickly, and predominantly within a specific setting for interaction. Extraversion predicted rates of social interaction, and this effect was particularly pronounced on the weekends. These results illustrate how the relational event framework and its extensions can lead to new insights on social interactions and how they are affected both by the interacting individuals and the dynamic social environment.

Alternating time spent on social interactions and solitude in healthy older adults

Time spent on being with others (social interactions) and being alone (solitude) in day to day life might reflect older adults' agentic regulatory strategies to balance the needs to belong and to conserve energy. Motivated from a joint lifespan psychological and social relationship theoretical perspective, this study examined how time spent on social interactions and solitude alternatively unfolds within individuals in daily life, relating to individual differences in trait-level well-being and fatigue. Over 21 days, a total of 11,172 valid records of social interactions were collected from 118 older adults (aged 65-94 years) in a smartphone-based event-contingent ambulatory assessment study in Switzerland. On average, a social interaction episode lasted 39 min and a solitude episode lasted 5.03 hr. Multilevel models showed that, at the within-person level, a longer-than-usual social interaction preceded and was followed by a longer-than-usual solitude episode. Moderator analyses showed that older adults with higher trait life satisfaction and lower trait fatigue spent even more time in social interactions after longer solitude episodes, amplifying the solitude-then-interaction association. Our findings suggest that whereas social interaction is a means to improve well-being, solitude is also an integral part in older adults' daily life supporting energy recovery.

Relational diversity in social portfolios predicts well-being

We document a link between the relational diversity of one's social portfolio-the richness and evenness of relationship types across one's social interactions-and well-being. Across four distinct samples, respondents from the United States who completed a preregistered survey (n = 578), respondents to the American Time Use Survey (n = 19,197), respondents to the World Health Organization's Study on Global Aging and Adult Health (n = 10,447), and users of a French mobile application (n = 21,644), specification curve analyses show that the positive relationship between social portfolio diversity and well-being is robust across different metrics of well-being, different categorizations of relationship types, and the inclusion of a wide range of covariates. Over and above people's total amount of social interaction and the diversity of activities they engage in, the relational diversity of their social portfolio is a unique predictor of well-being, both between individuals and within individuals over time.

Differences According to Sex in the Relationship between Social Participation and Well-Being: A Network Analysis

This study aimed to explore the effects of different types of social participation on the components of well-being, as well as the differences according to sex in the relationship between social participation and well-being. This was a cross-sectional community study. Well-being was measured using the positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA) profile. Social participation included activities of daily life, sports and entertainment activities, and social service activities. The independent association between each type of social participation and the components of well-being was examined by using a network analysis in both males and females. Of all 1276 participants surveyed, 60% were females. The results of the network analysis showed that positive emotion-housework (0.263), positive emotion-games (0.102), engagement-housework (0.107), engagement-work (0.054), and meaning-socializing (0.085) had unique connections in males; the average predictability in the network was 0.417. For females, positive emotion-physical activity (0.102), engagement-associations or societies (0.071), relationships-physical (0.090), relationships-socializing (0.092), and relationships-volunteering activities (0.133) had significant connections; the average predictability in the network was 0.358. Different types of social participation may have different effects on the components of well-being. Furthermore, differences according to sex in the relationship between social participation and well-being should be considered when formulating interventions to improve well-being.

The Social Side of Personality: Do Affiliation and Intimacy Motives Moderate Associations of Personal Relationships with Well-Being?

BACKGROUND

The quantity of social relationships and social interactions is positively related to well-being, but the underlying role of personality dispositions in these associations is unclear. The present study investigated whether social motives for affiliation and intimacy moderate associations of personal networks with well-being.

METHOD

We analyzed data from N = 389 individuals living alone (aged 35 - 60 years) who provided self-reports of social motives and well-being, and who completed an ego-centered social network task. A subsample of N = 331 individuals participated in a social network diary with daily questions about social interactions within their personal networks.

RESULTS

Overall, we found little support for moderations. Individuals higher in affiliation felt less lonely than individuals lower in affiliation when having more frequent in-person contact. Multilevel analyses of the diary data revealed that highly affiliative individuals reported being more satisfied than individuals lower in affiliation when having more daily social interactions than usual. No moderations were found in the context of intimacy.

DISCUSSION

Findings suggest that, especially in the context of daily social encounters, affiliation might moderate associations of social interaction quantity with well-being. Implications for future research on personality-relationship dynamics in personal networks and daily social interactions are discussed.

Well-Being Science for Teaching and the General Public

Research on well-being has exploded in recent years to more than 55,000 relevant publications annually, making it difficult for psychologists-including key communicators such as textbook authors-to stay current with this field. Moreover, well-being is a daily concern among policymakers and members of the general public. Well-being science is relevant to the lives of students-illustrating the diverse methods used in the behavioral sciences, presenting highly replicated findings, and demonstrating the diversity of individuals and cultures. Therefore, in this article, we present eight major findings that teachers and authors should seriously consider in their coverage of this field. These topics include processes such as adaptation, influences such as income, the benefits of well-being, and cultural and societal diversity in well-being and its causes. We also examine how much these topics were covered in 15 of the most popular introductory psychology textbooks. Although some topics such as social relationships and well-being were discussed in nearly all textbooks, others were less frequently covered, including the validity of self-reported well-being, the effects of spending on happiness, and the impact of culture and society on well-being. We aim to ensure more complete coverage of this important area in psychology courses.

Undersociality: miscalibrated social cognition can inhibit social connection

A person's well-being depends heavily on forming and maintaining positive relationships, but people can be reluctant to connect in ways that would create or strengthen relationships. Emerging research suggests that miscalibrated social cognition may create psychological barriers to connecting with others more often. Specifically, people may underestimate how positively others will respond to their own sociality across a variety of social actions, including engaging in conversation, expressing appreciation, and performing acts of kindness. We suggest that these miscalibrated expectations are created and maintained by at least three mechanisms: differential construal, uncertain responsiveness, and asymmetric learning. Underestimating the positive consequences of social engagement could make people less social than would be optimal for both their own and others' well-being.

Not "The More The Merrier": Diminishing Returns to Daily Face-To-Face Social Interaction Frequency for Well-being in Older Age

OBJECTIVES

While being socially active is beneficial for well-being in older age, it is unclear whether effects of social interactions on well-being indicate "the more the merrier" or they have limits as individuals socialize more or less across different days. This study addressed diminishing returns to social interaction frequency for well-being.

METHOD

We examined data from an event-contingent experience sampling study from 116 Swiss older adults (65 to 94 years old) over 21 days. Participants reported face-to-face social interactions once they occurred and daily well-being (i.e., positive and negative affect, loneliness) in the evenings.

RESULTS

On average, participants had 2.09 face-to-face social interactions per day. Linear and quadratic effects from multilevel models conjointly indicated that a higher number of daily social interactions was associated with higher daily positive affect and lower daily negative affect and loneliness, but that well-being reached its peak at 2 to 3 times above participants' typical daily interaction frequency. Once these numbers were surpassed, the benefit of additional social interactions diminished. Additionally, participants who typically had fewer social interactions, were unmarried, lived alone, and had more health conditions showed stronger associations between daily social interaction frequency and well-being.

DISCUSSION

Our findings suggest the benefits of social interactions on well-being exhibit diminishing returns. Social interactions may play a bigger role in older adults with less satiation for desire to belong and a limited future time perspective. We discuss these findings in terms of the belongingness hypothesis and the socioemotional selectivity theory.

Connecting with strangers in the city: A mattering approach

The evidence that social relationships are associated with well-being is so strong that it is taken as a 'fact' (Kushlev et al., 2018, Journal of Research in Personality, 74, 124). The bulk of the existing evidence derives from research examining social relationships with close others, such as family, romantic partners, and friends (Dolan et al., 2008, Journal Economic Psychology, 29, 94; Li & Kanazawa, 2016, British Journal of Psychology, 107, 675). However, less is known about how connecting with strangers is associated with well-being, how such connections are represented by people, and what motivates people's desire to connect with strangers. This study aims to examine representations and motivations for social connectedness with strangers in contemporary British cities. To do this, an interview study of 52 city-dwellers living in Britain's two largest cities, London and Birmingham, was conducted. The Grid Elaboration Method (GEM) (Joffe & Elsey, 2014, Review of General Psychology, 18, 173), a free association and interview technique, was applied. Thematic analysis revealed that representations of strangers vacillate between 'good' and 'bad', are built upon the 'self/other' thema, are shaped by the contextual factors place, time, and technology, and are motivated by a desire to 'matter'. This work makes a key contribution to the study of social connectedness in cities and can inform effective urban policy.

You are my happiness: Socially enriched happiness belief predicts life satisfaction, especially among the poor

What three words come to your mind in response to "happiness"? Using a free-association task [cf. Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L., & Dennis, S. (2000). What is free association and what does it measure? Memory and Cognition, 28, 887-899], this research finds that the number of social words (e.g. family, love) provided in link to happiness predicts people's actual life satisfaction level. However, this association was significantly moderated by the person's self-perceived financial state. The contingency between holding a socially-oriented belief about happiness and experienced life satisfaction was significant among members of low socioeconomic status (SES), but not among the high SES group. This pattern was replicated across two divergent samples (Asian college students, Study 1; American adults, Study 2), regardless of one's extraversion level (Studies 1, 2) and availability of social support (number of friends, Study 2). Given the overlapping function of money and social relationships (instrumental in promoting survival), believing in the social nature of happiness seems to be more central in the life satisfaction of those with less financial resource.