Carolyn E. Adams-Price

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Mississippi State University

Helen Kivnick (1950–2020) was a clinical psychologist and social worker at the University of Minnesota. Her early research was on the meaning of grandparenthood to grandparents, which inspired her interest in working with older adults. Kivnick became well known for her work with Erik and Joan Erikson, where she helped them to revise Erik Erikson’s...

Negative stereotypes of aging, such as dependency, tend to paint a picture of older adults as frail or a burden on society. This study aimed to explore the relationship between the Fear of Dependency Scale and anxiety and depression, evaluating gender, age, and physical health as moderators. Findings suggest that age moderated the relationship betw...

Despite increasing interest in creative aging, little connection has been made between creative aging research and research and theory on creativity. In part 1 of this paper, we will explain why 20th century psychological concepts of creativity were inadequate to describe the impact of creative participation for older adults, and how those theories...

Negative stereotypes of aging tend to depict older adults as frail or a burden on society. According to Stereotype Embodiment Theory, adults who believe negative aging stereotypes tend to internalize these thoughts, and have been found to experience negative physical and mental outcomes, in later life. One aspect of these internalized stereotypes i...

Mississippi is the only state in the United States where the majority of African Americans live in rural areas. African Americans have lived in rural Mississippi for many generations, despite few resources and health inequities. However, it is a mistake to look at older rural African Americans and see only poverty and illness. Previous research by...

Although gerontologists have increased their discussions of the benefits of creative activities for older adults, some aspects of late life creativity have been discussed very little. Two aspects of late life creativity that have received little attention include 1) long-term participation in a particular creative domain, resulting in learning and...

Person-Environment (P-E) fit is a major tenet of environmental gerontology and can predict aspects of physical and mental health. Rural older adults may vary greatly in their P-E fit, but their in-group differences have yet to be explored. The current study examines predictors of self-rated health in middle and older adult African Americans in rura...

In the last 25 years, there has been a great increase in interest in the benefits of creative activities for older adults, especially for dementia patients. More recent research (Adams-Price et al., 2018) has identified specific benefits that healthy older adults get from participating in arts activities. However, little research has featured the b...

The purpose of the study was to identify felt needs and concerns of older adults living in their own homes in Mississippi using intergenerational perspectives. This mixed-methods study used snowball sampling to collect data through semi-structured interviews and structured questionnaires that asked about the quality of life and current and future p...

Creative hobbies have been found to be beneficial for mental health, especially if an individual considers their hobby an important part of their identity (Adams-Price & Morse, 2018). Although receiving recognition from friends or family for one’s creative abilities has been seen to decrease depressive symptoms for adults, these benefits may depend...

Recent research has focused on the benefits of participation in creative activities for older adults, even those who experiencing cognitive deficits. However, many people begin participating in creative activities in midlife, and continue their participation into later life. Research in my lab suggests that middle aged people turn to crafts that in...

While late-life creativity has attracted significant scholarly inquiry, it is not clear that the same focus has applied to creativity in midlife and its relationship to creativity across the lifespan. Allied to a proposed symphonic concert by the Indianapolis Symphony of works from late midlife creativity with gerontologically-themed pre-concert ta...

Helen Kivnick was an extraordinary woman whose body of work strongly influenced and continues to influence the field of gerontology. Her classic work on vital involvement in late life, some of which was conducted with Erik and Joan Erikson, could be considered the foundation of current perspectives on positive gerontology, and creativity and aging....

Carolyn Adams-Price will lead off the symposium with a discussion of Kivnick’s impact on gerontology and the arts. Her various arts interests will be discussed, including her interests in choral and African music. Much of the talk will focus on the concept of vital involvement, why it was revolutionary, and how it connects to current research on po...

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted our way of life, leading to increased rates of anxiety and depression (Panchal et al., 2021). The implications may be worse for older adults who account for 80% of all COVID deaths (Freed et al., 2020). Meanwhile, prior to the pandemic, Adams-Price and colleagues (2018) found that creative hobby participa...

In recent years, there has been attention to health disparities between racial groups in the US, and between urban and residents. Older rural African Americans are at high risk, but have historical reasons tor distrust the health care system. This study examined qualitative definitions of health in older rural African Americans. Our sample included...

Assistive devices can help older adults remain independent; however, they may hesitate to use them due to fears of appearing dependent by embodying aging stereotypes. Reluctance to use assistive devices may lead to decreased life space mobility. The selective optimization with compensation (SOC) model posits that older adults employ strengths to ac...

The purpose of this study was to examine qualitatively attachment to home and community in older rural African Americans in the Deep South. Sixty adults aged 52-79 (mean age 64.7, 24 males and 36 females) were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Participants lived in two micropolitan counties in Mississippi, with most living in one of two...

Expectations about aging are connected with both positive traits (e.g., wisdom) and negative traits (e.g., physical frailty). Adams-Price et al. (2016) created the Personal Longevity Scale (PLS), which measures positive expectations (Hope) and negative expectations (Dread). The purpose of this study was to examine how psychological benefits gained...

Self-perceived creativity and participation in a serious leisure activity have been associated with multiple benefits for middle-aged and older adults, including having fewer depressive symptoms. The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which the psychological benefits gained from participating in one form of serious leisure activity,...

It is a common belief that older adults in rural areas have high subjective well-being, despite often experiencing greater poverty and having access to fewer resources than older adults who live in urban areas, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the “rural-urban paradox.” However, research does not consistently find high well-being in rural area...

Pets can provide older adults a means of social support, which can combat problems faced in later life including loneliness, anxiety, and depression. However, current research findings in this area are mixed. The current study explored the differences in anxiety and depression between pet owners and non-pet owners and how pet ownership was associat...

Creativity in later life comes in many forms, ranging from everyday creativity to genius-level creativity, and including both newly learned creative activities and life-long creative hobbies. Previous psychosocial models of creativity have had limited utility in explaining the significance of late life creativity. Glaveanu’s sociocultural model has...

Over the past 15 years, gerontologists have become increasingly interested in identifying activities that increase meaning and well-being in older adults’ lives. One such activity is creative activity. New research suggests that creative activity can improve social connections, well-being and self-esteem, and sometimes cognitive processing. Yet som...

Providing quality services is one of the challenges associated with the continued increase in the nation’s older adult population. Effective use of needs assessment data can be useful in assessing service need. This study measures the level of perceived need for supportive services among older adults in Mississippi. Using statewide needs assessment...

This study explores how fear of dependency influences perceived life satisfaction among a sample of American older adults. Fear of dependency is a novel concept that describes peoples’ willingness to receive help from others. It is important to a discussion of aging because Americans view independence as essential to well-being. Fear of dependency...

Although the creation of crafts by middle-aged and older adults is common across the globe, its significance has been overlooked in western culture. This article reviewed current research on the benefits of long-term participation in culturally meaningful creative arts and crafts (i.e., serious hobbies) and their impact on positive development in m...

Perspectives on late life creativity from well-known gerontologists and other experts

Although older adults are typically able to drive well into older adulthood, health and cognitive deficits can eventually make older motorists a danger to themselves and others. There is a need for increased senior-focused transportation options, yet implementation of such programs is problematic due to an uncertainty about which groups are in most...

There is evidence that older adults who subscribe to negative stereotypes of aging tend to have higher morbidity and mortality rates than similarly aged individuals who reject negative stereotypes of aging (Levy et al., 2002). This paper examines the stereotype that older adults are dependent on others. Baltes (1996) linked the dependency stereotyp...

Long-term participation in creative activities has benefits for middle-aged and older people that may improve their adaptation to later life. We first investigated the factor structure of the Creative Benefits Scale and then used it to construct a model to help explain the connection between generativity and life satisfaction in adults who particip...

These results of this study suggest that improvements in the classroom environment do seem to be related to fidelity of implementation. Teachers who see improvements in their classroom environments also seem to display high fidelity. However, the relationship between fidelity and the language/literacy environment was not significant. This may be du...

Changes in anhedonia levels (a major component of depression) have been identified as a significant predictor of suicidal ideation, even above and beyond other elements of depression. Cognitive behavioral therapy seeks to treat symptoms of depression, such as anhedonia, by increasing the number of pleasant activities in which the patients engage. A...

A new psychometrically acceptable measure of the desire to live a very long life was devised using two samples. In Study 1, initial exploratory analyses of the Personal Longevity Scale (PLS) scale revealed a two-factor structure. The Hope factor represents the hopefulness participants have with regards to their expectations about personal longevity...

The population of older adults in the US is growing extremely rapidly, and is expected to grow at an even faster rate in the near future. Consequently, there is an increasing need to provide transportation services for non-driving older adults. As older adults’ transportation needs are different from the needs of other age groups, the scholarly eva...

Expressive creativity is characteristic of the products of both eminent artists and more everyday creators, and may change in style and significance in later life. Research on the works of eminent creators suggests that products requiring the integration of knowledge tend to be produced later in life than very abstract products, but the most creati...

Social connections provided through religious participation are associated with subjective well-being in older populations. This study investigated how much of this association can be explained by other social connections, and whether these associations vary by age. A cross-sectional random-sample telephone survey was completed by 1,025 individuals...

Purpose – Prescription drug advertisements are commonly seen in magazines and on television. Many drug ads are targeted toward older adults, who tend to use more medications and suffer from more chronic conditions. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of such advertising remains uncertain. The aim of this paper is to compare implicit and explicit memory...

Using data from a statewide needs assessment survey, this study examines and compares the self-reported future concerns of two age groups in Mississippi: Early wave Baby Boomers (age 55 to 64; n = 383) and the young-old (age 65 to 75; n = 349). Items under analysis focus on issues related to future concerns surrounding financial resources, health,...

The discrepancy between measures of preferred and actual participation in decision making was used as a measure of ecological dissonance for an organization and then used to assess its relationship to job satisfaction, job involvement, job alienation, and job formalization. Questionnaires were administered to 143 faculty and staff members of Missis...

A consistent, albeit fragile, finding over the last couple of decades has been that verbalization of hard-to-verbalize stimuli, such as faces, interferes with subsequent recognition of the described target stimulus. We sought to elicit a similar phenomenon whereby visualization interferes with verbal recognition--that is, visual overshadowing. We r...

Older adults are often stereotyped as dependent on others. This study explored how seeing an older adult receiving help triggers the dependency stereotype, by examining perceptions of older and younger adults helping and being helped by others. Participants (183 younger and older adults) read vignettes of young and old people helping others and rat...

Chemotherapy is thought to cause cognitive deficits in some breast cancer patients, but the relative effects on older and younger breast cancer patients are unknown. The effects of chemotherapy on everyday cognitive tasks have not been examined. Thirty-eight female breast cancer survivors (3 to 45 months post chemotherapy) were compared to 55 age-m...

Verbal overshadowing has been found to disrupt recognition accuracy when hard-to-describe stimuli are used. The current study replicates previous research on verbal overshadowing with younger people and extends this research into an older population to examine the possible link between verbal expertise and verbal overshadowing. It was hypothesized...

The purpose of this study was to examine beliefs about creative activity and its psychological and spiritual benefits among middle-aged women who make jewelry, using qualitative measures. Twenty-nine female participants aged 31 to 64 answered questions about the effects of jewelry making on their lives. Qualitative responses provided phenomenologic...

We borrow a psychological concept, "empathic resonance," and use the concept as a theory for understanding how audiences react to films or television shows. Specifically, we use empathic resonance to analyze twelve Meryl Streep films in which she was nominated for an Oscar. We explain how empathic resonance functions in Streep's films.

Pharmaceutical companies spend growing amounts of money marketing their products to older adults to increase both awareness and demand. Prescription drug advertising appears in magazines and on the radio, television, and internet. Magazine advertisements seem to be the most common and can be examined by readers at their own pace, making it possible...

It has been long known that people blame victims for the bad things that happen to them, and that people blame victims more when the victims experience severe difficulties than when they experience minor difficulties, even if the victims were not particularly irresponsible. Little previous research has examined victim blaming in middle-age and olde...

The purpose of this study was to conduct an exploratory factor analysis to provide support for the construct validity of the Positive Psychology Protective Profile, a self-report measure based on positive psychology. 985 undergraduates completed the profile, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the College Life Stress Inventory. Scores on the first t...

Scholars have criticized television networks for the weak roles assigned to actresses. Women's roles are evolving. This study examined audience reactions to strong female characters on five prime time television shows. The study measured whether the sex or race of the viewers influenced their perceptions of the masculinity or femininity of the char...

This article examines professional codes of ethics as they apply to the mentoring of gerontology students, supervisees, or proteges. Ethics codes from the disciplines represented in professional gerontology were evaluated according to the specificity of their ethical mentoring guidelines. Three levels of specificity were identified. General "do no...

The Internet offers opportunities for instant communication with individuals all over the world, including those with whom one is already acquainted or new acquaintances. The Internet is seen as particularly dangerous for women, who are often to be subjected to sexual harassment and "flaming" when they participate in online discussions. However, wo...

Qualitative methods were used to examine the similarities and differences in the meaning of aging for young and old adults. Nineteen young adults and seventeen older adults were asked to describe in detail a specific event or time in their lives that suggested to them that they were aging. Their responses were reduced to significant statements by t...

This study examined attitudes of heterosexual and homosexual males toward heterosexual and homosexual cross-dressers. It was hypothesized that heterosexual males would be equally intolerant of homosexual cross-dressers, heterosexual cross-dressers, and homosexuals who did not cross-dress, but that homosexuals would be more tolerant of noncross-dres...

Adult Information Processing: Limits on Loss (see record 1993-98504-000 ) is a state-of-the-art discussion of information-processing approaches to aging that is a must read for graduate students and researchers in cognitive psychology or aging. The volume is unique in that the chapters describe processes that exhibit little age-related decline, and...

This study examined the literacy skills of 1791 black and white Mississippi residents aged 16 to 75, with varying levels of education. Using a new literacy test developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), three kinds of literacy were assessed: prose literacy, document literacy, and quantitative literacy. Results revealed that very few Missi...

This study examined adult age differences in identification accuracy, confidence, and verbal recall of crime films. A total of 120 Ss in 3 adult age groups watched 2 crime films that contained characters varying in role and visibility. Results suggested a modest negative relationship between age and identification accuracy but no age differences in...

This study examined adult age differences in identification accuracy, confidence, and verbal recall of crime films. A total of 120 Ss in 3 adult age groups watched 2 crime films that contained characters varying in role and visibility. Results suggested a modest negative relationship between age and identification accuracy but no age differences in...

Relatively recently, memory researchers have become sensitive to the specificity of memory operations. According to Jenkins (1979), for example, memory performance depends on stimulus, task, and person variables. Because stimulus, task, and subject variables used in laboratory studies may fail to resemble the variables that exist in everyday memory...

This study examined the influence of age, gender, and pubertal development on the personality attributions that adolescents make to age-appropriate celebrities. Sixty male and female 5th, 8th, and 11th graders completed a series of questionnaires describing the perceived maturity, attractiveness, and personality of six male and six female age-appro...

This study examined the popular notion that crushes or secondary attachments to celebrity figures are an important aspect of self-concept development during adolescence. In a repeated measures design, 79 male and female 5th, 8th, and 11th graders and college sophomores completed a set of personality scales, first describing themselves and later, de...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 1989. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [164]-184). Microfiche. s

The 10th West Virginia University Life-Span Development Psychology Conference on methodological innovations is reviewed. The emphasis of the conference was upon diversity in methodological and theoretical approaches in the investigation of life-span development. Among the topics presented and discussed were metatheoretical frameworks, survey method...