Theresa is a PhD student in Health Psychology, under the supervision of Dr. Christiane Hoppmann. After completing her diploma (equiv. MA) in Psychology at the Philipps-University Marburg, she joined the Health and Adult Development Lab in September 2016 to investigate links between everyday spousal dynamics and health.

Healthy aging
Over the next ten years, the proportion of older adults is expected to double. This makes it pivotal to better understand how older adults can maintain their independence, and social and physical wellbeing. I am interested in understanding how modern information and communication technology could be leveraged to promote social and physical wellbeing in old age. Furthermore, I examine mechanisms underlying health benefits of physical activity for older adults.

Health linkages in couples
Individuals in romantic relationships share their everyday environments, engage in many joint activities, and care about each other’s health. Thus, not surprisingly, romantic partners have been shown to be intertwined in their trajectories of health and health behaviours over time. My research investigates the underlying processes of how partners influence each other’s health. In this line of work, I examine how older couples are dynamically linked in their physiology (such as stress hormones) and health behaviours (such as physical activity) in everyday life using ecological momentary assessment methods.

Solitude
Besides spending time with others, most adults also spend at least part of their typical day alone. Solitude—the objective state of being alone and without any social interaction—can be both a positive and negative experience. On the one hand, you may seek solitude to concentrate or read a book. On the other hand, you may also spend a Friday night in solitude, feeling lonely and disconnected from others. I explored age differences in self-reported affect and stress hormone levels when in solitude compared to when with with others. Furthermore, I investigated whether individuals that are embedded in a context of high quality social relationships experience solitude less negatively.

Hoppmann, C. A., Pauly, T., Michalowski, V. I., & Nater, U. M. (2018). Everyday salivary cortisol as a biomarker method in lifespan developmental methodology. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.353

Lay, J. C., Pauly, T., Graf, P., Mahmood, A., & Hoppmann, C. A. (2018). Choosing solitude: Age differences in situational and affective correlates of solitude-seeking in midlife and older adulthood. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. Advance online publication doi:10.1093/geronb/gby04

Pauly, T., Lay, J. C., Scott, S. B., & Hoppmann, C. A. (2018). Social relationship quality buffers negative affective correlates of everyday solitude in an adult lifespan and an older adult sample. Psychology and Aging. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/pag0000278

Lay, J. C., Pauly, T., Graf, P., & Hoppmann, C. A. (2018). By myself and liking it? Predictors of distinct types of solitude experiences in daily life. Journal of Personality. Advance online publication. doi:10.1111/jopy.12421

Pauly, T., Lay, J. C., Nater, U. M., Scott, S. B., & Hoppmann, C. A. (2017). How we experience being alone: Age differences in affective and biological correlates of everyday solitude. Gerontology, 63(1), 55-66. doi: 10.1159/000450608

Lay, J. C., Gerstorf, D., Scott, S. B., Pauly, T., & Hoppmann, C. A. (2017). Neuroticism and extraversion magnify discrepancies between retrospective and concurrent affect reports. Journal of Personality, 85(6), 817-829. doi: 10.1111/jopy.12290

• Travel Award, Behavioral and Social Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America (2018)
• Travel Award, Physical Activity for Precision Health Cluster (2018)
• Poster Award, European Health Psychology Society (2018)
• Graduate Research Award, University of British Columbia (2018)
• Travel Award, International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (2017)