Social reserve such as having close friends helps promoting activity engagement in old age. Activity engagement in turn contributes to the accumulation of cognitive reserve and is a key predictor for maintaining executive functioning in aging. We investigated the mediating role of leisure activity engagement in the longitudinal relation between close friends and subsequent change in executive functioning as measured through performance changes in the Trail Making Test (TMT).

Longitudinal study with 897 older adults tested in two waves 6 years apart, analyzed using latent change score modeling.

TMT parts A and B, leisure activity engagement, and close friends.

A larger number of close friends in the first wave of data collection was related to a higher frequency of leisure activities in the first wave. A higher frequency of leisure activities in the first wave significantly predicted a smaller subsequent increase in TMT completion time from the first to the second wave (i.e. a smaller decline in executive functioning). Importantly, 41.3% of the longitudinal relation between a larger number of close friends in the first wave and a smaller subsequent increase in TMT completion time (i.e. a smaller decline in executive functioning) was mediated via a higher frequency of leisure activities in the first wave.

Social reserve such as having close friends may help promoting activity engagement in old age. By enhancing individuals’ cognitive reserve, this activity engagement may finally result in smaller subsequent decline in executive functioning in aging.

From a conceptual point of view, close friends are an important resource for promoting activity engagement in old age. Leisure activity engagement in turn is a key predictor of cognitive performance. Empirically, it remains unclear so far whether leisure activity engagement mediates between having close friends on the one hand and cognitive performance on the other, which we investigated in a large sample of older adults.

We assessed cognitive performance (Mill Hill vocabulary scale and Trail Making Test (TMT) parts A and B) in 2,812 older adults. Participants reported information on leisure activity engagement and close friends.

A larger number of leisure activities and a larger number of close friends were significantly related to better cognitive performance in the Mill Hill vocabulary scale and TMT parts A and B. A larger number of close friends were significantly related to a larger number of leisure activities. The number of leisure activities mediated more than half of the relation of the number of close friends to performance in all three cognitive measures.

Having close friends may be helpful to stimulate and promote activity participation in old age. By enhancing individuals’ cognitive reserve, this may finally preserve their cognitive performance level in old age.