The ability to adaptively cope with the challenges of stressful events such as the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for healthy aging. One effective coping strategy is social coping in which social networks are tapped for support. However, our review of the current literature on older adults’ coping abilities reveals two shortcomings: (1) a lack of consideration of a specific context and (2) an inadequate amount of attention paid to the different types of social networks in the cognitive appraisal process. As coping is a process in which older adults undergo the cognitive appraisal process to identify appropriate coping strategies, the shortcomings result in an incomplete understanding of older adults’ coping efforts and impair the development of effective community and intervention programs to improve older adults’ well-being. To fill this gap, drawing on the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping and the Social Capital Theory, we conducted 22 interviews with older adults who experienced lockdown measures during COVID-19. Our in-depth qualitative analysis shows the different roles played by bonding and bridging social capital in the cognitive appraisal process and illustrates the influence of a specific context on cognitive appraisals and subsequent coping efforts. Our findings provide significant contributions to theories regarding coping and social capital, as well as practices and policies for improving the well-being of older adults.

The present study examined the effect of event segmentation on cognitive control mode use in a sample of older adults (N = 30; M_age = 73, SD_age = 4.75) using a modified AX-Continuous Performance Test (AX-CPT). This task included a perceptual event boundary between each cue and its forthcoming probe by means of a spatial shift across the left and right side of the display. Past research showed that young adults’ existing proactive control bias could be enhanced in an event segmented AX-CPT relative to their performance on a standard AX-CPT. For older adults who adopt reactive control by default, the event boundary was expected to impede cue-reactivation during probe presentation, and thus further enhance their existing reactive control bias. To examine this, older adults were tested with a standard and an event segmented AX-CPT in two blocks, with error rates revealing a shift toward greater reactive control use in the event segmented relative to the standard AX-CPT. Findings supported our hypothesis that placing a spatial event boundary between each cue and forthcoming probe would further enhance older adults’ reactive control bias. This study contributes to the sparse but growing literature on the effects of task-specific manipulations on cognitive control use. The results are discussed in light of the dual mechanisms of control framework and the event horizon model.