Experience and regulation of emotion by younger and older adults

There are changes in the experience of emotion with age. However, published studies have disagreed about the nature of age-related changes. Many researchers agree that the important changes in emotional experience are linked to alterations in affect regulation processes. The present study examined age-related changes in emotional experience and the effects of two emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and response modulation, on subjective and physiological responses. The purposes of this study were: (1) to replicate and extend previous findings concerning age-differences in emotional experience, (2) to determine the sensitivities of subjective and physiological responses to the valence and arousal values of emotional stimuli in younger and older adults, (3) to describe age-differences in the effects of cognitive reappraisal and response modulation on emotional responding, and (4) to determine whether there are age-differences in the reported effectiveness of both types of emotion regulation strategies. Fifty-two younger and thirty-seven older adults were shown nine two-minute film segments varying in the level of pleasantness and arousal elicited. Subjective, expressive, and autonomic responses were obtained for each film segment. During the last six film segments, half of the participants in each age group were told to suppress their emotional expressions (response modulation condition), while the other half of participants in each age group were instructed to think about the film in a detached and objective manner (cognitive reappraisal condition). After viewing all of the films, individuals in both conditions reported their strategies for regulating emotion and estimated the effectiveness of these strategies. Results indicated that older adults felt more unpleasant during negative films and more aroused to all film segments. There were no age-differences in the sensitivity of any response measures to valence and arousal. In terms of emotion regulation, older and younger adults showed similar patterns of responses during cognitive reappraisal and response modulation, with the exception that older adults showed a greater benefit of cognitive reappraisal in reducing SCRs during negative films compared to younger adults. No age-differences in strategy effectiveness were observed. Overall, findings suggest largely similar patterns of emotional experience and emotion regulation in older and younger adults.