ArticlePsychology and aging2016
Terminal decline in well-being: The role of social orientation.
Article in Psychology and aging, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Functional decline in the final years of life: A multicohort study.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Combating social determinants with collective weapons: Social identities and health inequalities in male Portuguese Veterans.Journal of military, veteran and family health · 2026Article
- Trajectories of psychological and social well-being preceding death.BMJ mental health · 2025Article
- Terminal Increases in Depressive Symptoms in a Multinational Twin Consortium.Psychological science · 2025Article
- Towards a novel framework for identifying commonalities and differences in older people's end-of-life trajectories: aims and interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach of the ERC-funded TRAJECT project.Palliative care and social practice · 2024Article
- For living well, behaviors and circumstances matter just as much as psychological traits.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Review
- Late Life in the Living Room: Room Décor, Functional Limitations, and Personality.The Gerontologist · 2022Article
- Changes in social, psychological and physical well-being in the last 5 years of life of older people with cancer: a longitudinal study.Age and ageing · 2021Article
- Subgroups in Late Adulthood Are Associated With Cognition and Wellbeing Later in Life.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- The Relationship between Just World Beliefs and Life Satisfaction.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Well-being is more than happiness and life satisfaction: a multidimensional analysis of 21 countries.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2020Article
- Poor glucose regulation is associated with declines in well-being among older men, but not women.Psychology and aging · 2020Article
- Association of Low Systolic Blood Pressure with Postmortem Amyloid-β and Tau.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2020Article
- Levels of and changes in life satisfaction predict mortality hazards: Disentangling the role of physical health, perceived control, and social orientation.Psychology and aging · 2017Article
- Illuminating the Psychological Experience of Elderly Loneliness from a Societal Perspective: A Qualitative Study of Alienation between Older People and Society.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2017Article
- Health sensitivity: Age differences in the within-person coupling of individuals' physical health and well-being.Developmental psychology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Well-being development at the end of life is often characterized by steep deteriorations, but individual differences in these terminal declines are substantial and not yet well understood. This study moved beyond typical consideration of health predictors and explored the role of social orientation and engagement. To do so, we used social variables at the behavioral level (self-ratings of social participation) and the motivational level (valuing social and family goals), assessed 2 to 4 years before death. We applied single- and multiphase growth models to up to 27-year annual longitudinal data from 2,910 now deceased participants of the nation-wide German Socio-Economic Panel Study (Mage at death = 74 years; SD = 14; 48% women). Results revealed that leading a socially active life and prioritizing social goals in late life were independently associated with higher late-life well-being, less pronounced late-life decline, and a later onset of terminal decline. Significant interaction effects suggested that the combination of (reduced) social participation and (lowered) social goals magnifies the effects of each other. Findings also indicated that less decline in social participation was associated with less severe rates and a later onset of well-being decline. We found little evidence that valuing family goals is associated with late-life trajectories of well-being. Associations were independent of key correlates of well-being and mortality, including age at death, gender, education, disability, hospital stays, and goals in other life domains. We discuss possible pathways by which maintaining social orientation into late life may help mitigate terminal decline in well-being.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.