权益分类	功能权益	普通用户	{{item.name}}会员
{{category.name}}	{{benefitItem.name}}

Age Differences in Emotional Reactivity:The Age-Relevance of the Discrete Emotion Matters

情绪反应的年龄差异:离散情绪的年龄相关性

基本信息

批准号：
233520360
负责人：
Professorin Dr. Ute Kunzmann
金额：
--
依托单位：
Arbeitsgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie
依托单位国家：
德国
项目类别：
Research Grants
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
德国
起止时间：
2012-12-31 至 2015-12-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/233520360?language=en
关键词：
Age Differences Emotional Reactivity Relevance

项目摘要

Initial evidence suggests that whereas older adults react with less anger to anger evoking stimuli than young adults, age differences in emotional reactions to sadness evoking stimuli are nonsignificant or even reverse. This age-differential pattern may be due to the age-related relevance of anger and sadness. Sadness is elicited by an irreversible loss and associated with low situational control, the tendency to flexibly adjust to unattainable goals, and the motivation to search for social support. To experience anger, by contrast, it is necessary that other individuals intentionally ignore or block a persons goals. Thus, anger is associated with high situational control, the tendency to tenaciously pursue ones goals, and the motivation for social influence. These emotion-specific appraisals and action tendencies differ in salience across the adult life span. To this end, young adulthood has been described as a phase of growth, during which individuals pursue and try to accomplish many new goals. Therefore, the elicitor of anger, an intentionally blocked goal, and the associated appraisals and action tendencies (i.e., tenaciousness) should be particularly salient in young adulthood. By contrast, old age has been characterized as a phase of developmental decline. Thus, sadness, typically elicited by irreversible losses, and the associated appraisals and action tendencies (i.e., flexible goal adjustment) should be particularly salient among older adults. In two laboratory studies, which expose young and older adults to anger and sadness evoking stimuli, we will test these ideas. We will assess younger and older adults subjective, facial-expressive, and physiological reactions to anger and sadness evoking stimuli as well as their associated specific appraisals and action tendencies. We hypothesize that age differences will appear across the different emotion reaction systems, in that smaller anger reactions and greater sadness reactions should be observed among older as compared with younger adults. We further expect that these age differences in emotional reactions are associated with age differences in generalized control beliefs, control behaviors, and social goals. Finally, we predict that age differences in anger and sadness reactivity serve adaptive functions, in that high anger reactivity is associated with subjective well-being in young adults and high sadness reactivity is associated with subjective well-being in older adults. These predictions derive from the idea that the function of negative emotions is to reduce an imbalance between the individual and the environment, and that an individuals age determines the effectiveness of different strategies to accomplish this task.

初步证据表明，尽管老年人对愤怒刺激的反应比年轻人更少，但年龄差异对悲伤刺激的情绪反应并不显著，甚至相反。这种年龄差异模式可能是由于与年龄相关的愤怒和悲伤。悲伤是由不可逆转的损失引起的，并与低情景控制力、灵活调整无法实现的目标的倾向以及寻求社会支持的动机有关。相比之下，要体验愤怒，其他人有必要故意忽视或阻止某人的目标。因此，愤怒与高度的情景控制力、坚持不懈地追求目标的倾向以及社会影响力的动机有关。这些特定于情绪的评估和行动倾向在整个成年人的一生中具有不同的显着性。为此，青壮年被描述为一个成长阶段，在此期间，个人追求并努力实现许多新的目标。因此，愤怒的诱发者，一个被故意阻挡的目标，以及与之相关的评估和行动倾向(即，顽强)，在年轻的成年期应该特别突出。相比之下，老年被描述为发育衰退的阶段。因此，通常由不可逆转的损失引起的悲伤以及相关的评估和行动倾向(即灵活的目标调整)应该在老年人中特别突出。在两项实验室研究中，我们将测试这些想法，这两项研究让年轻人和老年人接触到愤怒和悲伤引发的刺激。我们将评估年轻人和老年人对愤怒和悲伤引起的刺激的主观、面部表情和生理反应，以及他们相关的具体评估和行动倾向。我们假设，年龄差异将出现在不同的情绪反应系统中，因为与年轻人相比，老年人应该观察到更小的愤怒反应和更大的悲伤反应。我们进一步预期，这些情绪反应的年龄差异与一般控制信念、控制行为和社会目标的年龄差异有关。最后，我们预测，愤怒和悲伤反应的年龄差异具有适应性功能，因为在年轻人中，高愤怒反应与主观幸福感相关，在老年人中，高悲伤反应与主观幸福感相关。这些预测源于这样一种观点，即负面情绪的功能是减少个人与环境之间的失衡，个人的年龄决定了完成这一任务的不同策略的有效性。