Cathleen Kappes

Emotional aging: a discrete emotions perspective

Perhaps the most important single finding in the field of emotional aging has been that the overall quality of affective experience steadily improves during adulthood and can be maintained into old age. Recent lifespan developmental theories have provided motivation- and experience-based explanations for this phenomenon. These theories suggest that, as individuals grow older, they become increasingly motivated and able to regulate their emotions, which could result in reduced negativity and enhanced positivity. The objective of this paper is to expand existing theories and empirical research on emotional aging by presenting a discrete emotions perspective. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach, we focus on a discussion of the literature examining age differences in anger and sadness. These two negative emotions have typically been subsumed under the singular concept of negative affect. From a discrete emotions perspective, however, they are highly distinct and show multidirectional age differences. We propose that such contrasting age differences in specific negative emotions have important implications for our understanding of long-term patterns of affective well-being across the adult lifespan.

Speaking About Feelings: Further Evidence for Multidirectional Age Differences in Anger and Sadness

This study investigated age differences in anger and sadness in a sample of 82 younger (Mage = 26, SDage = 4.05) and 80 older (Mage = 70, SDage = 3.95) adults. Participants were instructed to first relive a personal memory that was characterized by either anger or sadness and to subsequently think aloud about this memory. Across different emotional response systems (i.e., subjective feelings, verbal expressions, facial behaviors, physiological arousal), older adults reacted with less anger than did their younger counterparts, whereas age differences in sadness were less pronounced. Together the findings corroborate the idea that age differences in negative emotional reactivity are multidirectional and suggest that a discrete emotions approach may complement dimensional approaches to emotional aging.

The Emotional Stroop as an Emotion Regulation Task

Background/Study Context: The present studies investigate age differences observed when performing the emotional Stroop task considered as an expression of emotion regulation. Previous studies employing this task showed mixed findings regarding age differences, with a lack of evidence for positivity effects. However, moderating factors such as arousal or dispositional (emotion) regulation strategies were mostly not taken into account. Moreover, relations between Stroop effects and emotional reactions were not examined. Methods: In two studies (Study 1/2: nyoung = 26/41; nold = 19/39), an emotional Stroop task was employed and valence (negative, neutral, positive [Study 2 only]) and arousal of the word stimuli were varied. Additionally, flexible goal adjustment (FGA), positive and negative affect in the last 12 months, and change in momentary affect (Study 2 only) were measured. Results: Study 1 showed larger emotional Stroop effects (ESE) in older than younger adults with medium arousing negative words. We also found correlations between FGA (positive correlation) as well as negative affect (negative correlation) and the ESE with medium arousing negative words. Study 2 corroborates these findings by exhibiting positive change in momentary affect with larger ESEs for medium arousing negative words in the older age group. Conclusions: The findings emphasize the importance of including arousal level and dispositional regulation measures (such as FGA) as moderating factors in age differences and within-group differences in emotion regulation. Although we did not find evidence for a positivity effect, processing in the emotional Stroop task was related to positive change in momentary affect and less negative affect in the older age group. Taken together, our experiments demonstrate that the emotional Stroop task is suited as a measure for emotion induction and related emotion regulation mechanisms.

Fear of Crime in Old Age: A Sample Case of Resilience?

Objectives Research on fear of crime (FOC) in adulthood has often shown a positive age relation, whereas the risk of criminal victimization decreases with age. The present study distinguishes three dimensions of FOC (affective, cognitive, and behavioral component) and attempts to investigate possible explanations for differential age correlations by referring to processes of adaptation and resilience. In particular, the functionality of FOC and its impact on the individuals well-being is assumed to be influenced by the individuals capacity to accommodate to adverse circumstances. Method These hypotheses are investigated within a cross-sectional assessment using questionnaire data (1,792 participants between 18 and 98 years of age). Results As predicted, age was a strong predictor of the behavioral but not affective and cognitive component of FOC. In particular, the results support a twofold adaptive function of accommodation: Accommodation facilitates cautious behavior with increasing age and, at the same time, dampens the impact of FOC on depressivity. Discussion The adaptive role of cautious behavior in advanced age and accommodation is discussed within a developmental regulation framework.

Linking the Positivity Effect in Attention with Affective Outcomes: Age Group Differences and the Role of Arousal

Despite its assumed importance for emotional well-being, studies investigating the positivity effect (PE) in older adults’ information processing rarely tested its relationship with immediate or general affective outcome measures like emotional reactivity or emotional well-being. Moreover, the arousal level of the to-be-processed emotional stimuli has rarely been taken into account as a moderator for the occurrence of the PE and its relationship with affective outcomes. Age group differences (young vs. old) in attention (i.e., fixation durations using eye tracking) and subjective emotional reactions (i.e., pleasantness ratings) were investigated in response to picture stimuli systematically varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (low vs. high). We examined whether there is a link between age group differences in fixation durations and affective outcomes (i.e., subjective emotional reactions as well as emotional well-being). Older compared to young adults fixated less on the most emotional part in negative but not in positive low-arousing pictures. This age difference did not occur under high arousal. While age group differences in fixation duration did not translate into age group differences in subjective emotional reactions, we found a positive relationship between fixation duration on negative low-arousing pictures and emotional well-being, i.e., negative affect. The present study replicated the well-known PE in attention and emotional reactivity. In line with the idea that the PE reflects top-down-driven processing of affective information, age group differences in fixation durations decreased under high arousal. The present findings are consistent with the idea that age-related changes in the processing of emotional information support older adults’ general emotional well-being.

Long-term antecedents of constraints and mastery: Findings from the Health and Retirement Study.

Whereas it is well established that having a sense of control over one’s life circumstances facilitates positive aging-related outcomes across adulthood and old age, far less is known about what factors contribute to perceived control and whether these factors differ across the adult life span. We used longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 7,624, M age at 2006 = 67.50 years, range 50–104, 59% women) to examine whether level of, and time-related change in, episodic memory, depressive symptoms, and health (functional limitations, self-rated health) predict levels of 2 distinct components of perceived control: constraints and mastery. We found that lower levels of memory, more depressive symptoms, and less positive self-rated health were each associated with higher levels of constraints. Increases in depressive symptoms and functional limitations were also associated with higher levels of constraints, whereas stability in memory was related to lower levels of constraints. Conversely, lower levels of, and declines in, depressive symptoms and functional limitations as well as higher self-rated health were associated with self-reported higher levels of mastery. We found some evidence to suggest that these effects differ across the adult life span. Our findings show that, across adulthood and old age, constraints and mastery are shaped by level of, and time-related changes in, key domains of functioning. These findings provide impetus for future research to target mechanisms and moderators of such associations.

Activation, Inhibition, or Something Else: An Exploratory Study on Response Priming Using Moving Dots as Primes in Middle-Aged and Old Adults

Response priming refers to the finding that a prime stimulus preceding a target stimulus influences the response to the following target stimulus. With young subjects, using moving dot stimuli as primes indicated faster responses to compatible targets (i.e., prime and target are associated with the same response) with short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In contrast, with longer SOAs, participants responded faster to incompatible targets. In the present study, we extended the evidence by comparing middle-aged (50–65 years) and old (66–87 years) adults. With two different motion types, the result found in young participants was replicated in the middle-aged adults. In contrast, old adults showed large positive compatibility effects with the short SOA but neither activation nor inhibition effects with the longer SOA. We discuss our findings in light of several theoretical accounts (i.e., inhibitory deficit, deautomatization, evaluation window account, attention, rapid decay).