Promoting Cognitive, Physical, and Social Activities for Healthy Aging by Targeting Personality

Abstract

This chapter introduces a conceptual framework that aims to explain how and why engaging in cognitive, physical, and social activities is related to short-term healthy aging outcomes. The Activities in Motion and in Action (AMA) framework consists of five components (engagement, outcomes, mechanisms, moderators and intervention) and five paths through which the components may influence each other. The framework depicts an overview of the mechanisms that underlie cognitive, physical, and social activities’ successful short-term effects and the features that render these activities optimally effective. The centerpiece of the framework are personality-informed interventions, which are suggested to promote the engagement in cognitive, physical and social activities of older adults (i.e., “be in motion and take action”). The AMA framework proposes three intervention factors (action/practice, learning/insight, and self-regulation) as potential heuristic principles leading to positive healthy aging outcomes. In sum, this framework has great potential to inform theory development of healthy aging, as it is essential to a better understanding of predictors, mechanisms, and moderators that potentially shape short-term dynamic processes of healthy aging.