Emotion, Aging, and Decision Making

NCT06071130 | Not Yet Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: IRB-2021-520
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 240
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Exercise is routinely recommended because of its benefits for physical, cognitive, and mental health. It is especially beneficial for older adults due to its potential buffering effects against Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (Luck et al., 2014). However, little is known about how to best encourage older adults to exercise. Based on behavior change theory, different intrapersonal and interpersonal motivational factors are likely to be relevant during the contemplation, action, and maintenance stages of behavior change. Generally, as a result of motivational shifts toward prioritizing positivity and socially meaningful goals with advancing age (Carstensen, 2006), socioemotional aspects of decision making may become more salient and influential for older adults (Mikels et al., 2015; Peter et al., 2011). Our previous work has demonstrated that positive affect (Mikels et al., 2020) and social goals (Steltenpohl et al., 2019) play a critical role in older adults' motivation to exercise, but these two lines of research have not been integrated to date. Recent work indicates that positive affect is particularly beneficial for health when shared in social connections (Fredrickson, 2016; Major et al., 2018), and the proposed work will, for the first time, examine how shared interpersonal positivity may impact exercise decision making and behavior, especially during the contemplation and action/maintenance stages of behavior change. But who are the older adults that benefit the most from exercise in terms of physical, cognitive, and mental health (and should be hence be targeted with messages)? Not all older adults reap the benefits of exercise (Sparks, 2014) and, conversely, sedentary older adults have the most to gain. Overall, the current proposed research program is innovative in its (a) translational application of insights from affective, cognitive, and aging theory and research to understand the antecedents and outcomes of exercise decision making in younger and older adults, (b) conceptualization of both the social and emotional aspects of decision making, (c) development of novel methods for health messaging that incorporate social influences, and (d) novel assessments of the exercise-health link.

Conditions

Motivation; Aging; Health Behavior; Emotions; Social Behavior

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Connecting Socioemotional Aspects of Exercise to Improvements in Physical Health among Older Adults

  Materials \& Measures for Pre- and Post-Intervention: The measurement battery will include: a basic demographic form, a cognitive battery in addition to several oral inductive reasoning measures: Letter Sets and Figure Classification, and Everyday Problem Solving. We will also administer measures of physical activity related variables that have been collected in previous Fit \& Strong! studies, which include: a paper measure of self-efficacy for arthritis self-management, a paper measure of exercise adherence self-efficacy, an oral functional lower extremity muscle strength, 6-minute distance walk in which we measure how far a participant walks in 6 minutes, and a paper version of the Western Ontario and McMasters University Osteoarthritis Index.

  two years

Study Arms (1)

Experiment 4A & 4B

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants will attend for 3 sessions/week for 8 weeks. Instructors will conduct classes and maintain participant attendance records. Exercise components include flexibility, aerobics, strengthening, and physical activity logs. Classes begin and end with 10-minute warmups and cool downs. Participants are taught low-impact aerobic routines to maximize self-efficacy for physical activity maintenance after the program. This will include fitness walking that will progress from each participant's maximum capacity to the goal of 20 minutes of sustained walking. Participants will be instructed on how to gauge their exercise intensity and physical exertion. The strengthening focus of the program will improve independent functioning by targeting lower extremity strength with a graded, task-specific approach. Resistance will be progressively increased over the course of the program by adding weight. At the end of each exercise session, participants will log physical activity.

Behavioral: Fit and Strong

Interventions

Fit and Strong BEHAVIORAL

Procedure: During Years 3-5, participants will be recruited in waves through our standard recruitment practices to participate in Experiments 4A at the City of Chicago park sites. We will first prescreen them via telephone to verify that potential participants meet the inclusion criteria. F\&S! classes will be offered at two pre-determined Chicago park sites. Each of the two sites will host the 8-week-long program once in the spring and once in the fall for two years for a total of four F\&S! cycles at each center (totaling 8 F\&S! cohorts). Upon consenting to be in E4A, participants will be enrolled in F\&S! at the site closest to their home or the wait-list control. In the pre-intervention phase, participants both in F\&S! and on the waitlist will come to the lab at DePaul to complete the pre-intervention measurement batter. Within one week after baseline measurements, participants will attend F\&S! for 3 sessions a week for 8 weeks.

Experiment 4A & 4B

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 65 Years - 80 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Experiment 4B: Only participants who participated in Experiment 4A are eligible to participate in Experiment 4B.

You may not qualify if:

• Experiment 4B: Participants who did not participate in Experiment 4A are not eligible to participate in Experiment 4B.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• DePaul University: lead

Study Sites (1)

DePaul University

Chicago, Illinois, 60614, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Health Behavior; Social Behavior

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Behavior

Central Study Contacts

Joseph Mikels, PhD

CONTACT

773-325-8769; jmikels@depaul.edu

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: October 3, 2023
• First Posted: October 6, 2023
• Study Start: September 3, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2027
• Last Updated: February 12, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-02

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)