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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1366
igaa057.1366
Abstracts
Session 2959 (Poster)
Successful Aging
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Resilience in Young and Older Adults: Eudaimonic Well-Being Despite Life Challenges
Sharma Shubam 1 Bluck Susan 1 Liao Hsiao-Wen 2 1 
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States
2 
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”423 423
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Although the types of events that occur across life phases may vary, experiencing multiple life challenges in a short time-frame can disrupt mental health (Zepinic, 2016). Maintaining self-continuity (i.e., sense of being the same person over time) when experiencing challenges may, however, foster resilience (Masten, 2001). This study investigated, in both young and older adults, whether: (1) experiencing multiple recent negative life challenges relates to lower current eudaimonic wellbeing, and (2) self-continuity acts as an internal resource for resilience. That is, whether having greater self-continuity ameliorates the negative association between frequent life challenges and well-being. Participants (N = 99 young, 87 older adults) reported all challenging events experienced in the last six years (Sarason et al., 1978). They also completed measures of eudaimonic Well-being (Ryff, 1989) and Sense of Self-continuity (past six years; e.g., Habermas & Köber, 2015). Older adults reported higher eudaimonic well-being than young adults (p < .001). Young adults reported experiencing more challenges (p < .001). Regardless, for both age groups, more frequently experiencing life challenges was associated with lower eudaimonic well-being (p < .001). Self-continuity mediated the association between more frequent experience of challenge and lower eudaimonic well-being: β = .258, SE = .061, 95% CI [.138, .378] (p < .001). Classic risk models focus on the negative effects of life’s inevitable challenges. Our findings, grounded in a resilient aging framework, support the idea that individuals of any age can use internal resources (i.e., strong sense of self-continuity) to maintain or re-establish well-being.