Age Similarities and Differences in Spontaneous Use of Emotion Regulation Tactics Across Five Laboratory Tasks
Age Similarities and Differences in Spontaneous Use of Emotion Regulation Tactics Across Five Laboratory Tasks
复制标题
DOI：
10.1037/xge0000556
复制
发表时间：
2019-11-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Isaacowitz, Derek M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Livingstone, Kimberly M.;Isaacowitz, Derek M.
情绪老化理论提出，情绪调节的年龄差异可能在一定程度上解释了为什么老年人报告的情绪幸福感水平很高，而其他领域的幸福感却有所下降。本研究考察了5个实验任务中情绪调节策略偏好的年龄差异和相似性，这些任务旨在测量情绪调节过程模型中的策略(情境选择、情境修改、注意力展开、认知变化和反应调节)。一名成年样本(20-78岁，N=225岁)完成了任务，提供了使用减少消极、增加积极或参与情况消极方面的策略的机会。总体而言，年龄相似的战术偏好(受贝叶斯因素支持)比年龄差异要普遍得多。在整个样本中，参与者倾向于在情境选择和修改时避免消极方面，在注意力运用和认知变化方面寻求或引入积极方面。情感的自我报告表明，老年人对情况的积极方面反应更快，尽管他们并不比其他年龄段的人更多地寻求积极方面的影响。这些结果对老年人更有可能进行自发情绪调节的假设提出了一些质疑，但更确切地说，这表明在缺乏其他强烈目标的情况下，年轻人和老年人都表现出类似的偏好。这种在整个过程模型中检查策略的新方法突出了在策略中比较多个策略的好处，不仅在检查可能的年龄差异时，而且在研究总体情绪调节模式时也是如此。
Theories of emotional aging have proposed that age differences in emotion regulation may partly explain why older adults report high levels of emotional well-being despite declines in other domains. The current research examined age differences and similarities in emotion regulatory tactic preferences across 5 laboratory tasks designed to measure the strategies within the process model of emotion regulation (situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation). An adult life span sample (ages 20-78, N = 225) completed tasks offering opportunities to use tactics that decrease negative, increase positive, or engage with negative aspects of the situation. Overall, age similarity in tactic preferences (supported by Bayes factors) was much more common than age differences. Across the sample, participants favored avoiding negative aspects in situation selection and modification and seeking or introducing positive aspects in attentional deployment and cognitive change. Self-reports of affect suggest that older adults were more responsive to positive aspects of the situation, although they did not seek them out more than other age groups. These results cast some doubt on the assumption that spontaneous emotion regulation is more likely in older age, but rather show that both younger and older adults show similar preferences in the absence of other strong goals. This novel approach of examining strategies across the process model highlights benefits of comparing multiple tactics within strategies not only when examining possible age differences, but also when studying patterns of emotion regulation in general.