About

Karen Fingerman is the Sonia Wilson Professor of Human Development & Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the Director of the Texas Aging and Longevity Consortium and the Research Director of the NIA-funded Center on Aging and Population Sciences. Her research focuses on socioemotional development across adulthood, examining social and emotional aspects of aging, and assessments in daily life. She has conducted extensive research on parents and children, in-law ties, romantic partners, grandparents and grandchildren, friends, and peripheral social ties. Dr. Fingerman has contributed significantly to understanding social relationships and emotional well-being in later life, utilizing ecologically valid methodologies such as EMA surveys, tactical measurements of physical activity, and Electronically Activated Recorders. Her work has been funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Brookdale Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and others. She has published nearly 200 papers and chapters, and her research includes studies on caregivers for older adults with Lewy Body Dementia, young adults providing care to aging relatives, and the impact of technology on social connection in late life. She has received numerous awards for her research and mentorship, including the Baltes Award for Distinguished Research Achievement in Psychology and Aging from the American Psychological Association in 2022.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Social psychology
• Gerontology
• Social Science
• Virology
• Sociology
• Psychiatry
• Computer Science
• Public relations
• Business
• Clinical psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Internet privacy
• Geography
• Gender studies
• Demography
• World Wide Web

Selected publications

• Older adults’ audible self-talk when alone: associations with interpersonal tensions

  The Journals of Gerontology Series B · 2026-03-28

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  OBJECTIVES: Older adults generally report positive relationship experiences, yet they still encounter interpersonal tensions that can undermine well-being. When faced with such tensions, they often draw on effective strategies that avoid confrontation. Audible self-talk may represent an adaptive strategy that warrants research attention. METHODS: A sample of 286 participants (Mage = 74.11) completed an initial interview indicating overall interpersonal tensions within their social networks and demographic characteristics. Then, they reported daily interpersonal tensions and mood every 3 hr for 5-6 consecutive days, while the Electronically Activated Recorder captured 30-s ambient sound snippets every 7 min. Audible self-talk was defined as speech occurring during a 3-hr interval when participants had no in-person or phone social contact. RESULTS: Main analyses focused on a subsample who spent time alone during the study period (n = 149); this subsample did not differ from the larger sample in social network interpersonal tensions. ordinary least squares regressions showed that participants with higher overall interpersonal tensions in their social networks engaged in more frequent audible self-talk over the study period. Multilevel models revealed that on days when participants encountered more interpersonal tensions, they exhibited more self-talk. Encountering more interpersonal tensions was associated with lower positive mood on days with less frequent self-talk, yet this association was attenuated on days with more frequent self-talk. DISCUSSION: Audible self-talk co-occurs with interpersonal tensions and may be linked to the preservation of positive mood when these tensions arise in late life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Family Commitment, Appreciation, and the Pursuit of Future Goals Among Young Adult Caregivers

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Up to 10 million young adults are involved in caregiving for older family members with physical or cognitive impairments, but it is not clear whether these young adults feel acknowledged for their efforts. Family commitment may foster feelings of appreciation within the caregiving network. However, this sense of commitment and feeling appreciated could hinder the pursuit of future goals (e.g., education, romantic relationships) due to their greater investment in providing care. African American, Hispanic, Asian American and non-Hispanic White caregivers aged 18 to 29 (N = 141) of family members aged 65+ completed a 30-minute survey regarding caregiving tasks, family commitment, feelings of appreciation from other members of the caregiving network, ability to pursue future goals, and background information. Linear regression models revealed that young adult caregivers with higher family commitment reported greater feelings of appreciation from others in their caregiving network, controlling for caregiving tasks. Contrary to the hypothesis, young adult caregivers reported a greater ability to pursue future goals when they had higher family commitment and felt more appreciated. Findings suggest that young adult caregivers may feel more appreciated when their values (i.e., commitment) are consistent with their behaviors (i.e., providing care for older family member). This sense of appreciation may enhance their pursuit of future goals, likely because they integrate caregiving into their identity rather than viewing it as nonnormative. These issues may be more specific to young adults than midlife and older caregivers and warrant distinct interventions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Empathy is associated with older adults’ social behaviors and verbal emotional expressions throughout the day

  Scientific Reports · 2025-01-02 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Empathy plays a crucial role in promoting older adults' interpersonal experiences, but it remains unclear how these benefits of empathy occur. To address this gap, we examined associations between empathy and how older adults behave and express emotions during their daily interpersonal encounters. Participants included 268 adults aged 65+ (46% men, n = 124) from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study. They reported background characteristics and empathy in baseline interviews and indicated interpersonal encounters every 3 hours across 5 to 6 days. Participants wore electronically activated recorders (EAR), an app that captured 30-second snippets of ambient sounds every 7 minutes. Verbatim transcripts were coded for positive and negative social behaviors (e.g., praise, complain) and text was analyzed via Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software for verbal expressions of positive and negative emotions (e.g., happy, hope, hate, hurt). Multilevel models showed that greater empathy was associated with greater variety in positive social behaviors throughout the day. More empathic older adults expressed more positive emotions while engaging in positive behaviors and less negative emotions when engaging in negative behaviors. This study innovatively draws on naturalistic data to delineate how more empathic older adults may have more positive and less negative social experiences than their less empathic counterparts. Findings may inform interventions that can incorporate empathy training to target those at higher risk of poor interpersonal experiences and outcomes (e.g., social isolation).

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Daily sleep, social encounters, and momentary loneliness in late life

  The Journals of Gerontology Series B · 2025-07-31

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  OBJECTIVES: Social experiences have implications for well-being in late life, and everyday sleep may play an important role in shaping those experiences. This study examines the associations between sleep, quality of social encounters, and momentary loneliness in older adults' daily lives. METHODS: We used the ecological momentary assessment data over 5 to 6 days from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (N = 287, Mage = 73.56). Every morning, older adults reported their sleep quality and sleep disturbances the prior night. At each 3-hr assessment, they reported encounters with close and weak social ties, indicated the pleasantness and stressfulness of each encounter, and rated their feelings of loneliness. RESULTS: Multilevel models showed that older adults who overall reported higher sleep quality or fewer sleep disturbances also had more pleasant and less stressful encounters with both close and weak ties across the study period. More (less) pleasant and less (more) stressful encounters with close ties were associated with feeling less (more) lonely at a given assessment, especially on days when older adults had better sleep the prior night, compared to days when they had worse prior night's sleep. In contrast, more (less) pleasant and less (more) stressful encounters with weak ties predicted feeling less (more) lonely regardless of the qualities of the prior night's sleep. DISCUSSION: Findings suggest the promotive role that better sleep plays in older adults' everyday social life and highlight the robust benefits that high-quality social encounters with weak ties may confer in mitigating loneliness in late life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dyadic Ambivalence and Life Satisfaction in Couples Managing Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Caring for a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can elicit considerable distress but there are also positive moments. A growing body of work has examined caregivers’ ambivalence in the care relationship and linked it to negative caregiver outcomes such as depression, but dyadic assessments of both parties’ perspectives are missing. We examined ambivalence in both people with AD and their spousal caregivers, seeking to identify the correlates and well-being outcomes of such ambivalence in this unique context. Participants included 72 couples managing early-stage AD. People with AD and spousal caregivers independently self-reported positive and negative relationship qualities (used to indirectly calculate their ambivalence) and life satisfaction. Caregivers reported both partners’ demographic characteristics and their spouses’ behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), focusing on memory-related behaviors and psychological symptoms. Path analyses revealed that the number and frequency of psychological symptoms in people with AD were positively associated with their own and caregivers’ ambivalence. Caregivers’ distress ratings of memory-related behaviors and psychological symptoms were positively associated with their ambivalence. Greater ambivalence was associated with lower life satisfaction in both spouses. BPSD directly affected both spouses’ life satisfaction but there were also indirect effects via ambivalence. This study utilizes a dyadic approach to assess ambivalence in dementia care. Findings reveal the conflicting emotions that couples experience as they cope with early-stage AD, identify sources of such ambivalence, and shed light on the development of dyadic interventions that can promote positive outcomes in both partners.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Everyday Language and Cognitive Functioning in Late Life

  The Journals of Gerontology Series B · 2025-05-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  OBJECTIVES: Language deterioration is a marker of cognitive decline in late life. An emerging literature has examined features of language associated with executive functioning and working memory when older adults are cognitively healthy. This study aims to identify linguistic features that predict cognitive functioning in a sample of cognitively healthy individuals. METHOD: Participants from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (DEWS; aged 65-89, N = 260) completed a battery of standard cognitive tests. They wore an Android device containing the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) app, which recorded ambient sound 30 seconds every 7 min for 5-6 days (N = 26,339 sound files with participant speech). Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software generated linguistic features from transcriptions of recorded speech. Machine learning models (random forest classifier) were trained with the linguistic features (n = 29) to predict cognitive functioning. RESULTS: Principal component analysis revealed that the cognitive domains fit a single factor. The random forest classifier achieved robust model performance (accuracy = 0.72, precision = 0.74, recall = 0.91, F1-score = 0.81, and area under curve = 0.73). Linguistic features most strongly associated with cognitive functioning included: first-person singular pronouns (with worse cognitive functioning), articles, words indicating differentiation, first-person plural pronouns, and words per sentence (with better cognitive functioning). DISCUSSION: Findings suggest that language processes are evident across multiple domains of cognitive functioning when older adults remain within a cognitively healthy range. Use of complex language may indicate optimal cognitive functioning, a topic worthy of future investigation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• When helping helps: benefits of daily advice provision on mood among older adults with life problems

  The Journals of Gerontology Series B · 2025-07-08 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  OBJECTIVES: Older adults may benefit from providing support to others, but experiencing life problems may undermine their ability to provide certain types of support. This inability to provide support may be detrimental to well-being, but older adults with life problems may particularly benefit when they are able to provide support. METHODS: Participants aged 65+ from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (Mage = 73.75, N = 287) completed a baseline interview indicating whether they experienced a number of life problems in the prior year and background characteristics. Then, they completed an ecological momentary assessment study reporting their positive and negative mood every 3 h for 5 to 6 consecutive days. They also indicated whether they provided emotional support, practical support, and advice to their social partners at the end of each day. RESULTS: Regression analyses revealed no significant associations between the number of life problems and the provision of each type of support. Multilevel models showed that providing advice was significantly associated with higher daily positive mood on that day. Further, older adults with a high number of life problems (≥3 life problems) experienced less negative mood on days when they provided advice compared to days when they did not. However, this effect was not observed among those with fewer problems. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that older adults find ways to contribute to their social partners even when their resources may be tested, but the types of support they provide may still have differing implications for their daily well-being.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Daily Support to Close Friends and Mood Among Older Men and Women

  Research on Aging · 2025-09-26 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Support provision may enhance older adults’ well-being. Yet support for friends, a voluntary and socially engaging behavior, remains relatively understudied. This study examines daily support to close friends and its within-person links to mood, focusing on gender differences. Older adults ( n = 180, Mean age = 74.02, 57% female) completed 5–6 days of ecological momentary assessments, reporting on their positive and negative mood every 3 hours and support exchanges daily. Emotional support to friends being most common, followed by advice and practical help. Findings showed men were less likely than women to provide emotional support to friends. Older adults experienced greater positive mood on days they provided practical support. Men experienced lower positive mood on days they provided emotional support, a pattern not observed in women. Findings highlight gender differences in helping close friends, suggesting potential emotional costs for older men in providing emotional support.

  PublisherDOI

• Mode of social contact is associated with momentary verbal communication of emotion and well-being in older adults

  Communications Psychology · 2025-12-08

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Older adults prioritize emotional well-being in their relationships, but communication of emotion may differ during in-person and phone contact. Older adults (N = 266, aged 65-90) completed ecological momentary assessments (EMA; n = 4,627) reporting their social encounters via different modes of social contact and positive and negative mood every 3 hours. Participants wore a device with the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) app which recorded 30 seconds every 7 minutes (n = 104,746 sound files). Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) extracted linguistic features reflecting verbal communication of emotion from the sound file transcriptions. Multilevel models revealed that in-person and phone contact were associated with communicating more positive emotions, and in-person contact was associated with communicating more negative emotions. There was no statistically significant evidence that the association between communicating positive emotions and more positive and less negative mood varied by form of communication. Participants who had less in-person contact on average experienced a greater increase in positive mood when they communicated positive emotions. This study emphasizes the emotional benefits of social contact, particularly for communicating positive feelings. Findings highlight the role of in-person contact in older adults' daily lives, allowing for the verbal communication of negative emotions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Linguistic Features of Older Adults’ Daily Self-Talk: A Naturalistic Observational Approach

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Research supporting socioemotional selectivity theory finds that older adults tend to have better emotion regulation than younger adults, particularly with regard to negative emotion. Verbalized self-talk (i.e., audible speech when alone) may be an important but understudied emotion regulation strategy in late life, promoting psychological distance through second-person pronouns and structured speech, and providing an opportunity to express negative emotions. The current study sought to characterize linguistic features of verbalized self-talk descriptively and in comparison to conversations with social partners. Older adults (N = 333; Mage=73.9) reported whether they had been with social partners every three hours across 5–6 days. Electronically Activated Recorders captured 30-second sound snippets every 7 minutes. Coders transcribed 109,609 snippets; 918 snippets contained verbal utterances when participants were alone (self-talk). Using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, we extracted linguistic features including second-person pronouns, formal and structured language, and emotional tone. Multilevel models revealed no significant within-person association between being alone and second-person pronoun use. However, when participants were alone, they used more structured language and expressed more negative emotion compared with language when with social partners. This study makes an important contribution by capturing naturalistic self-talk as it occurs in daily life and suggests self-talk may help older adults regulate negative emotions. Future research using wearable sensors might capture arousal or allow self-reported experience sampling of unspoken self-talk to tease out when and who uses self-talk to regulate emotions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03AG014484

  NIH · $67k · 1999

• NIH Grant R01AG017916

  NIH · $1.3M · 2006

• Communication and Dissemination Core

  NIH · $7.4M · 2020–2027

• Social Networks and Well-being in Late Life: A Study of Daily Mechanisms

  NIH · $2.5M · 2015–2022

• Family Exchanges Study II

  NIH · $3.8M · 2006–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Bob G. Knight

  University of Southern Queensland

  196 shared

• Zachary Gassoumis

  University of Southern California

  190 shared

• Judy Howe

  National Institute on Aging

  186 shared

• Robert Hudson

  184 shared

• Brian Carpenter

  Washington University in St. Louis

  181 shared

• Amy Fiske

  West Virginia University

  180 shared

• Rachel Pruchno

  Rowan University

  160 shared

• Stephen B. Kritchevsky

  Wake Forest University

  158 shared

Awards & honors

• Baltes Award for Distinguished Research Achievement in Psych…
• BSS Distinguished Mentorship in Gerontology Award from the G…
• CNS Teaching Excellence Award (2020)
• Faculty Teaching Award from the Diversity and Inclusion comm…