Every December, U.S. News and World Report publishes a list of “50 Ways to Improve your Life” for the coming year. In the December 19th issue of 2004, one of the recommendations in the “Get Well” section that dealt with ways to improve your health was to “Get Married.” Indeed, across a number of epidemiological surveys, married individuals report greater happiness and life satisfaction, and have a lower risk of clinical depression than their unmarried counterparts. In addition to these benefits, marriage has benefits for physical health. However, marriages characterized by low marital satisfaction and high conflict have damaging effects on physical health, and the effect of poor marital quality on health may differ between men and women.

Study 1. As an active ingredient in lifestyle interventions, social support is shown to be effective for promoting positive health outcomes. However, many interventions do not directly assess social support, leaving its impact in these contexts ambiguous. The Diabetes Prevention Program is one of the most well supported lifestyle interventions, and specifically targets decreased weight and increased physical activity. The DPP intervention has many opportunities for the exchange of social resources, but these social aspects remain unassessed. The present study assesses the relationship between perceived social support and the Diabetes Prevention Program outcomes of weight and physical activity. Results demonstrate a significant negative relationship between intraindividual change in social support and intraindividual changes in weight across the trajectory of the intervention. Additionally, this relationship was significantly mediated by intraindividual changes in self-efficacy. However, these relationships were not supported for physical activity. This study contributes to the literature investigating the role of social support in lifestyle interventions, and is the first to do so within the Diabetes Prevention Program.

Study 2. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in drastic restrictions limiting in-person social connection, but also drove adoption and progression in digital communication. Social support can act as a buffer for stress during such times of crisis. However, when social distancing was required, many adapted much of their social interaction into a digital context. There is minimal work understanding how digital social support differs from in-person social support, particularly during a time when in-person social support is already displaced. The present study investigates the relationship between strictness of distancing and perceived digital social support, perceived general social support, and higher perceived loneliness. In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), the present study also assessed the effectiveness of a brief video-based social support intervention for increasing perceived digital social support, increasing perceived general social support, and decreasing perceived stress. Higher strictness of distancing was related to lower perceived digital social support, perceived general social support, and perceived loneliness. Additionally, the intervention group had significantly greater increases in perceived digital social support than controls, but no significant difference in change for general social support or perceived stress. The present study demonstrates the unique context that COVID-19 created for social interaction, and provides initial evidence in support of a brief and low-resource intervention for increasing perceptions of digital social support.

This study examined the effects of a 4-week yogic breath meditation intervention on physiological (blood glucose and cardiovascular) and psychological measures of self-control, particularly attention control via performance on the Stroop cognitive task. We recruited healthy participants from the University of California, Los Angeles campus. The final sample (N = 67) consisted of graduate (n = 1) and undergraduate (n = 66) students. Participants were randomized to an intervention or control group and assessed before and after the 4-week class series. There were no intervention effects on Stroop task performance, heart rate and blood pressure (all ps > .10). Participants in the control group exhibited a sharper decline in blood glucose in response to the Stroop task compared to participants in the intervention group at post-intervention (p = .07). In addition, participants in the control group exhibited lower positive affect levels than participants in the intervention group at post-intervention (p = .04) and a decline in acceptance based coping from pre- to post-intervention (p = .05). However, the difference in positive affect was mainly driven by feelings of pride (p = .06). Participants in the intervention group exhibited higher levels of spiritual coping (p = .01), emotional expression (p = .08) and acting with awareness (p = .03) than participants in the control group at post-intervention. There were no group differences in other domains of self-control such as health behaviors. While the intervention was not associated with an improvement in the primary outcome, attention control, the results suggest that breath-based meditation might buffer the depleting effects of self-control, as measured by declines in blood glucose levels. Breathing-based meditation might further help to prevent a decline in adaptive coping behaviors and acting with awareness. The study was novel in that, to my knowledge, it was the first meditation intervention study that used different types of breathing techniques as the active intervention ingredient. Studying factors that determine when and how breathing-based meditations affect self-control efforts is an intriguing topic for future research studies.

Study 1. Previous research suggests that affectionate touch might downregulate stress systems like the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. However, the current literature lacks in generalizability beyond the laboratory setting and outside the context of romantic relationships. The cortisol awakening responses (CAR) is a measure of HPA axis that is responsive to daily fluctuations in stress and social information. However, associations between affectionate touch and CAR have never been assessed. I used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods to measure daily hugging behavior in 104 first year college students and salivary cortisol to assess the cortisol awakening response (CAR). I found that participants who reported more daily hugs also had smaller CARs the next morning. This study contributes to the literature on social interactions and stress responsive systems and emphasizes the importance of assessing affectionate touch behaviors that can be exchanged outside the context of romantic relationships.

Study 2. Compared to European Americans, Latinx Americans may engage in more affectionate touch behavior across a variety of social environments. However, previous studies fail to assess how changes in identification with Latinx or Anglo culture, or acculturation, influences affectionate touch behavior. Since acculturation changes as the cultural context changes, I tested if hugging behavior changed with acculturation for Latinx students over the first year of college. Three days of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and self-reported acculturation were measured at the beginning and the end of the year. Individual preference for touch, identification with the Latinx cultural value, simpat�a, and the demographics of students’ home communities were also considered. In our sample of 81 students, we did not find evidence of these relationships. However, this study emphasizes the importance of considering the personal, social, and cultural factors that influence affectionate touch behavior.

Relocating to an assisted living residence can disrupt social networks at a vulnerable time of health decline. Identifying factors associated with social engagement, and how it relates to well-being and physical health, may help promote residents’ quality of life. Paper 1 identified how perceptions of aging (e.g., positive vs. negative age stereotypes as describing oneself vs. other residents) related to social engagement in assisted and independent living residences. Paper 2 examined links between residents’ social support and health. Eighty-one residents completed structured interviews and were asked to wear actigraphs (i.e., sleep monitors) and complete daily diaries, measuring sleep and pain, for four days. Pilot follow-up interview data facilitated examination of prospective associations between social engagement and later health.

In Paper 1, both self-directed and resident-directed age stereotype endorsement were independently related to measures of perceived support availability and social motivation, but not social integration. The positive and negative stereotype components were also associated with different social outcomes. Residents who thought they more closely matched negative stereotypes reported greater social isolation, less available companionship and emotional support, and greater likelihood of avoiding closeness with residents; stronger endorsement of positive self-directed stereotypes was related to greater perceived availability of companionship and emotional support. Moreover, only stronger positive, not negative, resident-directed stereotype endorsement was related to less perceived social isolation, greater desire to make new friends, and lower likelihood of avoiding closeness with residents.

In Paper 2, greater perceived support availability was robustly related to more positive emotional well-being, but associations between social support and physical health-related outcomes were weaker. Although having more outside friends was related to more efficient and more total sleep at night, associations were small. Other associations were not significant after accounting for potential confounds or did not fit within a larger pattern.

This dissertation highlights varying roles of positive vs. negative stereotypes and stereotypes directed toward oneself vs. other older adults. Perceptions of aging may be practical targets for interventions promoting social engagement in residential care facilities. Social support was also linked to emotional well-being in these communities, although links to physical health were less consistent than expected.