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

初步证据表明，尽管老年人对愤怒刺激的反应比年轻人少，但对悲伤刺激的情绪反应的年龄差异不显著，甚至相反。这种年龄差异模式可能是由于愤怒和悲伤与年龄相关。悲伤是由不可逆转的损失引起的，与低情境控制、灵活适应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，其他人故意忽视或阻碍一个人的目标是必要的。因此，愤怒与高度情境控制、执着追求目标的倾向以及社会影响力的动机有关。这些特定情绪的评价和行为倾向在成人的一生中表现得不同。为此，青年期被描述为成长的一个阶段，在此期间，个人追求并努力实现许多新的目标。因此，愤怒的诱因，一个故意阻止的目标，以及相关的评价和行动倾向（即，顽强）应该在年轻的成年期特别突出。相比之下，老年被认为是发育衰退的一个阶段。因此，悲伤，通常是由不可逆转的损失引起的，以及相关的评价和行动倾向（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，我们将让年轻人和老年人暴露在愤怒和悲伤的刺激下，来测试这些想法。我们将评估年轻人和老年人对愤怒和悲伤刺激的主观、面部表情和生理反应，以及与之相关的具体评价和行动倾向。我们假设年龄差异会出现在不同的情绪反应系统中，因为与年轻人相比，老年人的愤怒反应较小，悲伤反应较大。我们进一步预期，这些情绪反应的年龄差异与广义控制信念、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功能，即年轻人的高愤怒反应与主观幸福感相关，老年人的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不平衡，而个人的年龄决定了完成这一任务的不同策略的有效性。

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.