Activity Diversity and Well-Being in Daily Life: Evidence for Heterogeneity Between Older Adults

Abstract

Objectives: Although higher activity diversity is associated with higher well-being at the between-person level, it is unknown whether a day with higher activity diversity is related to higher well-being within persons. Within 24 hr per day, there are a limited number of activities on which individuals could spend their time and energy. Personal resources could influence the expenditure of energy and thus the experience with daily activities. This study examined daily associations between activity diversity and well-being and whether age and self-related health moderated the associations.

Methods: For seven times per day over 2 weeks, 129 retired older adults (Mage = 73.9 years, SDage = 5.6) reported their present activity engagement and positive and negative affect. Daily activity diversity was operationalized as the number of different activity types reported per day. Daily positive and negative affect were assessed as the average of a range of high- and low-arousal affective states. Self-rated health was assessed with an item from the 12-Item Short-Form Health Survey at baseline.

Results: Multilevel models showed that daily activity diversity was unrelated, on average, to daily positive or negative affect at the between- and within-person levels. Daily activity diversity was associated with lower daily positive affect in participants with lower self-rated health, but the Johnson-Neyman regions of significance were outside of the range of observed data.

Discussion: Divergent patterns were observed in the within-person associations between activity diversity and well-being across participants. Results are discussed in the context of time use and well-being in older age.

Keywords: Ambulatory assessment; Health; Healthy aging; Positive and negative affect; Time use.

Figure 1.

Plots of moderating effect of self-rated health on within-person association between daily activity diversity and daily positive affect. n.s. = not significant; SD = standard deviation.

Figure 2.

Histogram of person-specific coefficients of within-person associations between daily activity diversity and daily positive and negative affect. The histograms represent the coefficients for each participant relating their daily positive and negative affect to daily activity diversity at the within-person level. In panel (A), the correlation coefficients ranged from −0.17 to 0.13. In panel (B), the correlation coefficients ranged from −0.16 to 0.15.