Availability, use, and cultivation of support networks as predictors of the well-being of middle-aged and older Chinese: a panel study

Volunteerism and positive aging in Hong Kong: a cultural perspective

This study aims to examine factors related to volunteerism and explore the relationship between volunteerism and positive aging across three age groups. A total of 1,170 Hong Kong Chinese respondents aged between 15 years and 79 years were recruited for the study via a random household survey. Results found that age was negatively related to participation in voluntary work. Older adults aged 60 years to 75 years demonstrated the lowest volunteer participation rate compared with younger adults (aged 15 years to 39 years) and midlife adults (aged 40 years to 59 years). Paradoxically, older volunteers exhibited the highest frequency of volunteering, operationalized as spending 10 hours or more on volunteer work in the past month. Compared with younger and midlife adults, older adults were motivated to volunteer by societal concern and esteem enhancement. Participation in voluntary work was associated with three positive aging outcomes: good health, caring engagement with significant others, and productive engagement in the community. The findings suggest great potential in promoting volunteering in old age because older volunteers tend to contribute more hours than younger volunteers do, and volunteering is associated with positive aging.

Social network characteristics and salivary cortisol in healthy older people

Psychobiological research on aging in humans has been confounded by individual differences that have not been adequately characterized in the literature. This paper is an attempt to shed light on this issue by examining the impact of social network characteristics predictive of successful aging on salivary cortisol among 78 older Chinese people in Hong Kong. Eight salivary cortisol samples were collected each day for two consecutive days from immediately after awakening to 12 hours later. Two components of the cortisol diurnal cycle, response to awakening and diurnal decline, were examined in relation to social network characteristics including size, emotional support, and cultivation. ANOVAs with repeated measured were run to examine influences of the three social network characteristics on the cortisol awakening response and diurnal decline, with the effects of gender, age, socioeconomic status, and waking time controlled. Results indicated that those who spent more time and effort in developing and strengthening their social ties (i.e., those high in “cultivation”) exhibited a significantly greater rise in cortisol in the morning and a significantly steeper decline over the day, thus attesting to more effective activation and deactivation of the HPA axis. Network cultivation reflected a positive motivation to nurture social relationships more than the other two network characteristics. Its effect on cortisol might stem from the positivity underlying the motivation.