Aging, Emotion Regulation, and Stress

项目摘要 压力是日常生活中常见的一部分，我们在压力情况下调节情绪的能力 在很大程度上决定了我们的幸福和健康。重要的是，情绪调节能力通常 随着年龄的增长而改善，相对于生命的早期阶段，晚年的特点是向 积极性：日常的情绪体验总体上充满了较少的消极性， 情绪信息的积极性。考虑到老年人在健康方面的普遍改善- 健康和情绪健康，可以假设老年人比年轻人更好， 对压力的反应和调节。虽然在晚年与年龄相关的情感力量可以改善 我们对某些类型的压力源的反应（例如，人际冲突），与年龄有关的脆弱性可能 在其他情况下调节情绪的能力会受到影响。例如，审议的减少 认知处理，对认知表现的威胁性评估的敏感性增加，以及 压力引起的生理失调都可能影响老年人调节压力的能力。 该项目旨在了解老年人可能对非最佳反应的情况， 无法有效调节压力，以及如何利用他们的优势，以减轻情绪失调下， 应力具体而言，本研究将：（1）探讨成人情绪和生理的年龄差异 人际与认知评价压力源的反应和调节，（2）证明 老年人在调节压力反应时是否比年轻人更能利用积极情绪 成年人，（3）检查情绪调节在缓冲的影响的潜在保护作用， 认知功能的遗传风险。这些目标将通过两个实验室实验来实现， 研究人际冲突与认知评价压力对情绪的影响 调节和生理反应性和恢复（例如，心输出量、心率、血压）， 老年人和年轻人。此外，拟议的研究将研究如何积极的背景下（即， 暴露于积极刺激）可能会影响情绪和生理反应和调节 在紧张的情况下。考虑到积极情绪在压力下的重要性， 利用与年龄相关的积极性来加强监管行为对健康有重要意义。 衰老最后，该项目将探讨情绪调节是否会调节有害情绪的影响。 认知功能的遗传风险因素。通过追求这些目标，该项目承诺： 告知我们的理解如何优势和老年人的脆弱性影响我们的能力， 在不同的压力情况下调节我们的情绪，提供关于如何利用优势的见解， 晚年的生活可能会减轻压力的有害影响，并突出了情绪调节的效用 防止与年龄相关的认知能力下降。

Project Summary Stress is a common part of daily life, and our ability to regulate our emotions in stressful situations heavily determines our well-being and health. Importantly, emotion regulatory abilities generally improve with age, and relative to earlier parts of the life span, later life is characterized by shifts toward positivity: everyday emotional experience is on the whole filled with less negativity, and the processing of emotional information shifts toward the positive. Given older adults’ general improvement in well- being and emotional health, it may be assumed that older adults are better than younger adults at responding to and regulating stress. Although age-related emotional strengths in later life can improve our responses to some types of stressors (e.g., interpersonal conflict), age-related vulnerabilities may compromise the ability to regulate emotions in other contexts. For instance, declines in deliberative cognitive processing, increased sensitivity to threatening evaluations of cognitive performance, and stress-induced physiological dysregulation may all impact the ability of older adults to regulate stress. This project aims to understand situations under which older adults might non-optimally react to and ineffectively regulate stress, and how to utilize their strengths to mitigate emotional dysregulation under stress. Specifically, this research will: (1) explore adult age differences in emotional and physiological reactivity to and regulation of interpersonal versus cognitively evaluative stressors, (2) demonstrate whether older adults capitalize more on positivity when regulating stress responses than do younger adults, and (3) examine the potential protective effect of emotion regulation in buffering the influence of genetic risk on cognitive functioning. These aims will be met through two laboratory experiments that examine the effects of interpersonal conflict versus cognitively evaluative stressors on emotion regulation and physiological reactivity and recovery (e.g., cardiac output, heart rate, blood pressure) in older and younger adults. In addition, the proposed research will examine how positive contexts (i.e., exposure to positive stimuli) may influence emotional and physiological responsivity and regulation during stressful situations. Given the importance of positive emotions in the context of stress, leveraging age-related positivity to enhance regulatory behaviors has significant implications for healthy aging. Finally, the project will explore whether emotion regulation moderates the effects of deleterious genetic risk factors on cognitive functioning. By pursuing these aims, this project promises to: better inform our understanding of how the strengths and vulnerabilities of advanced age impact our ability to regulate our emotions in different stressful situations, provide insight into how drawing on the strengths of later life may assuage the detrimental effects of stress, and highlight the utility of emotion regulation in protecting against age-related cognitive decline.