The aim of this article is to explore the links between former guest workers’ attitudes toward return, as they approach retirement age, and ambivalence. More specifically, we seek answers to the following two questions: Do older immigrants modify their intentions toward return around the retirement period? If the answer is positive, we then ask: To which factors are these changes related when looking at intentions to return both before and after retirement? These questions have seldom been analyzed in the sociological literature, and their relation to ambivalence has not yet really been explored. After considering the state of the art, both from a sociology of migration perspective and through a life-course approach, we analyze empirically how older immigrants deal with the question of return. Our data come from a representative survey of approximately 300 older immigrants from Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, and Spain), aged between 65 and 79 and living in urban Switzerland. Our findings show that (1) while a significant proportion of Italian and Spanish older migrants give up the idea of returning definitively to their country of origin and decide to establish their main residence in Switzerland, among the Portuguese, a significant minority wanted to return before retirement and are still planning to return, expecting to recover full citizenship in their “home” country; (2) changes with respect to return intentions mainly concern former blue-collar workers and white-collar employees; and (3) older immigrants who do not see migration as a positive decision demonstrate more ambivalence about return.

\textbf\textitBackground: Cognitively stimulating activities contribute to the accumulation of cognitive reserve that is proposed to be instrumental for maintaining cognitive functioning in aging. Adopting a novel, more general conceptual perspective including models of vulnerability, we argue that cognitive reserve may modify the longitudinal association between perceived stress and the rate of subsequent decline in executive functioning. \textbf\textitObjective: The present study set out to investigate the longitudinal relationship between perceived stress and subsequent decline in executive functioning over 6 years as measured through performance changes in the Trail Making Test (TMT) and whether this longitudinal relationship differed by key markers of cognitive reserve (education, occupation, and leisure activities), taking into account age, sex, and chronic diseases as covariates. \textbf\textitMethods: We used latent change score modeling based on longitudinal data from 897 older adults tested on TMT parts A and B in two waves 6 years apart. Mean age in the first wave was 74.33 years. Participants reported information on perceived stress, education, occupation, leisure activities, and chronic diseases. \textbf\textitResults: The longitudinal relationship between greater perceived stress in the first wave of data collection and steeper subsequent decline in executive functioning over 6 years was significantly reduced in individuals who had pursued a higher frequency of leisure activities in the first wave. \textbf\textitConclusion: The longitudinal relationship between perceived stress and subsequent decline in executive functioning may be attenuated in individuals who have accumulated greater cognitive reserve through an engaged lifestyle. Implications for current cognitive reserve and gerontological research are discussed.

. How do we know when an activity has exhausted us or helped us recover? In this paper, we present a motivational approach to exhaustion and recovery that takes into account the multidimensional nature of the constructs. The account details three psychological processes that may – individually and in interaction – underlie exhaustion and recovery. Specifically, we propose that changes in mood, subjective time perception, and opportunity costs experienced during an ongoing effortful or relaxing activity indicate a person’s momentary degree of exhaustion and recovery and impact the decision of whether the person should continue or disengage from the activity at hand. Addressing developmental changes across adulthood, we present two opposing hypotheses on how younger and older adults may differ in their experiences of exhaustion and recovery: (i) Older adults may experience an accelerated subjective time perception compared to younger adults and may thus feel less exhausted (more recovered) than younger adults after spending an identical amount of time engaged in an effortful (relaxing) activity. (ii) Older adults may be more sensitive toward increasing opportunity costs experienced during an effortful or relaxing activity and may therefore feel exhausted or recovered faster than younger adults.

People's perceptions of benefits and risks play a key role in their acceptance or rejection of medical interventions, yet these perceptions may be poorly calibrated. This online study with N = 373 adults aged 19–76 years focused on unrealistic optimism in the health domain. Participants indicated how likely they were to experience benefits and risks associated with medical conditions and completed objective and subjective numeracy scales. Participants exhibited optimistic views about the likelihood of experiencing the benefits and the side effects of treatment options described in the scenarios. Objective and subjective numeracy were not associated with more accurate ratings. Moreover, participants’ underestimation of the risks was significantly greater than their overestimation of the benefits. From an applied perspective, these results suggest that clinicians may need to ensure that patients do not underestimate risks of medical interventions, and that they convey realistic expectations about the benefits that can be obtained with certain procedures.