The Ubiquitous Decline or Paradox of Aging: Young and Older Adults' Differences in Emotion Reactivity, Recognition and Regulation

Abstract

The aging literature indicates that physical, cognitive and affective functions follow different trajectories across the lifespan. Physical and cognitive capabilities are shown to decline with advancing age, whereas affective functioning is suggested to remain stable or may even be enhanced in older adults. The main aim of the present thesis is to examine age differences in emotion reactivity, recognition and regulation. The inter-relationships among emotion reactivity, recognition and regulation were also assessed to provide a more complete picture of potentially different age trajectories of emotion processes. In addition, the effects of potential moderators, namely emotion intelligence and loneliness, on age differences in emotion reactivity were examined.

In Study I, a standardised set of film stimuli was developed and validated. Forty-eight participants (24 young and 24 older adults) participated in the stimulus validation study. The chosen film stimuli were shown to be effective in eliciting target emotions in a laboratory setting. No significant age and sex differences were observed, and prior viewing of the film was shown to have no significant impact on participants’ self-reported emotion experience.

In Study II, young-old differences in emotion reactivity, recognition and regulation as well as the inter-relationships among these affective functions were of interest. In addition, age-related decline in heart rates and skin conductance levels in response to affective film stimuli were observed. Older adults were significantly worse at recognising facial expressions of sadness and anger, and marginally worse at recognising facial expressions of fear. Older adults reported more habitual use of expressive suppression than their younger counterparts, while no age difference was found for cognitive reappraisal use. Emotion intelligence did not buffer against age-related decline in emotion reactivity.

Finally, in Study III, I aimed to replicate the findings of Study II, as well as extend Study II by including facial electromyography as another index of emotion reactivity. I also employed emotion recognition tasks that are more complex and tap into other sensory modalities. Again, age-related decline in heart rates and skin conductance was observed. Young adults displayed significantly greater corrugator activity in response to fear-provoking film clips, but no significant age difference was found for corrugator activity in response to the anger and sadness-provoking film clips. Young and older adults also displayed comparable level of zygomatic facial activity when presented with the amusing film clip. Older adults were worse at recognising angry and fearful facial affect. As for the face-voice and body-voice matching tasks, older adults were worse at recognising all emotions except for surprise. Older adults also reported more habitual use of expressive suppression, and that was shown to affect emotion recognition performance.

Taken together, these studies indicate that different components of affective functions are differentially affected by normal adult aging. Implications for competing perspectives of socioemotional functioning in older adults as well as suggestions for positive aging are provided.