Aging & Mental Health · Apr 15, 2024

Determinants of social loneliness among older adults in job retirement and the role of emotional expressivity

By Jutengren G, Ståhl F

OBJECTIVES: The study examined the possibility that a mediating role of positive and negative emotional expressivity may contribute to understanding the associations between social loneliness and its previously identified predictors (i.e. health, age, sex, and social living situation). METHOD: Self-reported assessments were collected from community-dwelling Swedish residents (aged 65 and above) in job retirement. Structural equation modeling with manifest variables was applied to cross-sectional data (N = 601) to analyze two competing models; one main-effect regression model, examining the predictive effect of emotional expressivity (along with health and sociodemographics) on social loneliness, and one mediation model, examining the mediating effect of emotional expressivity (using the bootstrapping technique provided in Mplus). RESULTS: The results indicated that the mediation model fit the data considerably better than the main-effect regression model (Δχ² [Δdf = 8] = 72.69, p < 0.00001), and demonstrated a good fit on its own, with CFI = 0.986 and RMSEA = 0.030. This suggests that emotional expressivity contributes to the understanding of the connection between social loneliness and its previously identified predictors. CONCLUSION: Recognizing the significance of emotional expressivity has the potential to enhance our understanding of loneliness in older adults, both in theory and in practice.

doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2024.2338205Open accessPubMed 38619317Populations