Dynamic factor analysis of worldviews/religious beliefs and well-being among older adults

Intraindividual patterns of time-lagged relationships among self-reports of worldviews/religious beliefs, self-concept, and physical and psychological well-being were investigated. Participants were older adults (mean age = 77 years) who were measured weekly covering a total of 25 weeks. Dynamic Factor Models were fitted to multivariate repeated measures data pooled over subsets of participants. The results showed significant time-lagged cross-factor relationships suggesting that worldviews/religious beliefs had a significant direct effect on self-concept and physical health over 2 weeks. For each factor series, there were substantial autoregressive effects indicating persisting effects of factors on themselves over 1 or 2 weeks. A link between worldviews/religious beliefs and physical health was found in the time-lagged structure of within-person variability. The findings underscore the need to study both intraindividual change and interindividual differences in intraindividual variability to obtain a better understanding of behavior and behavioral development.