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Frieder R. Lang

Bio: Frieder R. Lang is an academic researcher from University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. The author has contributed to research in topics: Social relation & Socioemotional selectivity theory. The author has an hindex of 36, co-authored 151 publications receiving 5918 citations. Previous affiliations of Frieder R. Lang include Max Planck Society & German Institute for Economic Research.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Prioritizing emotion-regulatory goals was associated with greater social satisfaction and less perceived strain with others when participants perceived their future as limited, and priority of goal domains was found to be differently associated with the size, composition, and perceived quality of personal networks depending on FTP.
Abstract: On the basis of postulates derived from socioemotional selectivity theory, the authors explored the extent to which future time perspective (FTP) is related to social motivation, and to the composition and perceived quality of personal networks. Four hundred eighty German participants with ages ranging from 20 to 90 years took part in the study. In 2 card-sort tasks, participants indicated their partner preference and goal priority. Participants also completed questionnaires on personal networks and social satisfaction. Older people, as a group, perceived their future time as more limited than younger people. Individuals who perceived future time as being limited prioritized emotionally meaningful goals (e.g., generativity, emotion regulation), whereas individuals who perceived their futures as open-ended prioritized instrumental or knowledge-related goals. Priority of goal domains was found to be differently associated with the size, composition, and perceived quality of personal networks depending on FTP. Prioritizing emotion-regulatory goals was associated with greater social satisfaction and less perceived strain with others when participants perceived their future as limited. Findings underscore the importance of FTP in the self-regulation of social relationships and the subjective experience associated with them.

999 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the idea that age-related reductions in network size are proactively managed by older people by examining the interrelationships among chronological age, network composition, social support, and feelings of social embeddedness.
Abstract: The idea that age-related reductions in network size are proactively managed by older people is explored by examining the interrelationships among chronological age, network composition, social support, and feelings of social embeddedness (FSE) in a representative sample of 156 community-dwelling and institutionalized adults ages 70-104 years. Comparisons between people with and without nuclear families are made to explore the influence of opportunity structures on network size. Social networks of very old people are nearly half as large as those of old people, but the number of very close relationships does not differentiate age groups. Among Ss without living nuclear family members, the number of emotionally close social partners predicted FSE better than among Ss with nuclear family members. Findings provide evidence for proactive selection, compensation, and optimization toward the goal of emotional enhancement and social functioning in old age.

411 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined measurement invariance and age-related robustness of a short 15-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-S) of personality dimensions, which is well suited for applications in large-scale multidisciplinary surveys.
Abstract: We examined measurement invariance and age-related robustness of a short 15-item Big Five Inventory (BFI–S) of personality dimensions, which is well suited for applications in large-scale multidisciplinary surveys. The BFI–S was assessed in three different interviewing conditions: computer-assisted or paper-assisted face-to-face interviewing, computer-assisted telephone interviewing, and a self-administered questionnaire. Randomized probability samples from a large-scale German panel survey and a related probability telephone study were used in order to test method effects on self-report measures of personality characteristics across early, middle, and late adulthood. Exploratory structural equation modeling was used in order to test for measurement invariance of the five-factor model of personality trait domains across different assessment methods. For the short inventory, findings suggest strong robustness of self-report measures of personality dimensions among young and middle-aged adults. In old age, telephone interviewing was associated with greater distortions in reliable personality assessment. It is concluded that the greater mental workload of telephone interviewing limits the reliability of self-report personality assessment. Face-to-face surveys and self-administrated questionnaire completion are clearly better suited than phone surveys when personality traits in age-heterogeneous samples are assessed.

343 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Considering age differences there are more and larger negative age effects in the resource-poorest group than in theresource-richest one, and the metamodel of selective optimization with compensation is used to interpret the findings.
Abstract: The goal of this article is to examine differential aging in everyday functioning between resource-rich and resource-poor older adults. Four groups of older adults were identified on the basis of 2 distinct resource factors: a Sensorimotor-Cognitive factor and a Social-Personality factor. The resource-richest group consisted of those participants who were above the median in both factors; those falling below the median in both factors comprised the resource-poorest group; and 2 additional groups consisted of older adults who were above the median in either 1 of the 2 factors. At the level of mean differences, the 4 groups differed in the length of the waking day, the variability in activities, the frequency of intellectual-cultural and social-relational activities, and resting times. Considering age differences there are more and larger negative age effects in the resource-poorest group than in the resource-richest one. The metamodel of selective optimization with compensation is used to interpret the findings.

261 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The regulation of social relationships is proposed as a promising venue for further research in this field that may also reflect key issues in social, emotional, and cognitive aging.
Abstract: Individuals are seen as coproducers of their social environments who actively manage the social resources that contribute to their positive aging. The regulation of social relationships reflects adaptive mechanisms of deliberate acquisition, maintenance, transformation, or discontinuation of relationships within the individual's personal network. Mechanisms of relationship regulation in later life are illustrated on the individual level with recent empirical findings on social motivation. Close emotional ties are relatively stable until late in life, whereas peripheral (i.e., not close) social relationships are preferably discontinued. Such patterns of change and continuity were found to reflect individual differences in goal priorities and in future time perspectives (i.e., subjective nearness to death). Proactively molding the social world in accordance with one's age-specific needs also contributes to subjective well-being. The regulation of social relationships is proposed as a promising venue for further research in this field that may also reflect key issues in social, emotional, and cognitive aging.

241 citations


Cited by
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TL;DR: For the next few weeks the course is going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach it’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery.
Abstract: So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

9,847 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 May 1981
TL;DR: This chapter discusses Detecting Influential Observations and Outliers, a method for assessing Collinearity, and its applications in medicine and science.
Abstract: 1. Introduction and Overview. 2. Detecting Influential Observations and Outliers. 3. Detecting and Assessing Collinearity. 4. Applications and Remedies. 5. Research Issues and Directions for Extensions. Bibliography. Author Index. Subject Index.

4,948 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors show that the perception of time is malleable, and social goals change in both younger and older people when time constraints are imposed and suggest potential implications for multiple subdisciplines and research interests.
Abstract: Socioemotional selectivity theory claims that the perception of time plays a fundamental role in the selection and pursuit of social goals. According to the theory, social motives fall into 1 of 2 general categories--those related to the acquisition of knowledge and those related to the regulation of emotion. When time is perceived as open-ended, knowledge-related goals are prioritized. In contrast, when time is perceived as limited, emotional goals assume primacy. The inextricable association between time left in life and chronological age ensures age-related differences in social goals. Nonetheless, the authors show that the perception of time is malleable, and social goals change in both younger and older people when time constraints are imposed. The authors argue that time perception is integral to human motivation and suggest potential implications for multiple subdisciplines and research interests in social, developmental, cultural, cognitive, and clinical psychology.

3,874 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) was abbreviated to a 10-item version, the BFI-10, which was developed simultaneously in several samples in both English and German.

2,985 citations