Age and emotion regulation in daily life: Frequency, strategies, tactics, and effectiveness.

Abstract

Models of aging and emotion hypothesize age differences in emotion regulation-in frequency, use of strategies, and/or effectiveness-but research to date has been mixed. In the current experience sampling study, younger, middle-aged, and older adults (N ϭ 149), were prompted 5 times a day for 10 days to report on both general strategies (e.g., situation selection, cognitive change) and specific tactics. For each of the 5 strategies proposed by Gross's process model, tactics included those that introduced/increased positive aspects, avoided/decreased negative, and engaged with negative. Consistent with socioemotional selectivity theory, older adults reported less contra-hedonic motivation than younger, but this did not necessarily translate into age differences in regulation frequency or strategy use. Across the sample, strong preferences emerged for strategies intervening early in the emotional process and for tactics that introduced/increased positive aspects; a pattern that was even stronger in older adults. Middle-aged people more often avoided and reduced negative situations, whereas younger adults more often (though rarely) sought out or exacerbated negative situations. Effectiveness varied across strategies and tactics, but age differences only emerged for situation selection and reducing negative aspects of the situation (both less effective for older than younger adults). This research highlights the importance of studying how emotion regulation strategies are implemented in real life situations and suggests that age differences in emotion regulation, when they do emerge, may be more a matter of degree than of type.

Interpersonal Emotion Regulation: an Experience Sampling Study

“…Although across the sample, people tended to share with close (vs. non-close) others and seek emotion-oriented goals only relative to problemoriented goals only, these tendencies decreased with increasing age. These unexpected findings may be because we examined IER after negative events have occurred, as predictions based on the socioemotional selectivity theory have been supported for ER efforts that occur early in the emotion-eliciting process (e.g., situation selection; Livingstone & Isaacowitz, 2019).…”

A relational perspective on emotion regulation across adulthood

“…However, there is mixed evidence to support the idea that older adults are better able to modulate their emotions (Allen & Windsor, 2019). Experience sampling work suggests that older adults are more likely to meet their emotional goals in daily life (Scheibe et al., 2013), although there are not age differences in the effectiveness of specific strategies (Livingstone & Isaacowitz, 2021). An experiment that manipulated strategy use found that older adults were better able to modulate their emotions than younger adults when using positive reappraisal but less effective with detached reappraisal and similarly effective with suppression (Shiota & Levenson, 2009).…”

“…Age differences in the use of various ER strategies may also depend on the specific emotion being regulated, as there were not age differences in habitual reports of suppression use specifically with anger (Phillips et al., 2006). Finally, recent ecological momentary assessment work tracking ER across daily life finds age similarity in the use of a wide range of strategies (Eldesouky & English, 2018; Livingstone & Isaacowitz, 2021).…”

Incorporating Ecological Momentary Assessment into multi-method investigations of cognitive aging: Promise and practical considerations

“…Further, prior work has shown that older adults actually prefer being sampled via electronic devices, relative to filling out pen and paper questionnaires (Gwaltney et al, 2008). Moreover, EMA studies have reported higher rates of compliance in older, relative to younger adults (e.g., Livingstone & Isaacowitz, 2019). Despite EMA bringing in its own methodological challenges and complications, it is our view that the benefits often far outweigh the costs, making EMA a promising and integral component of the methodological toolbox researchers can use to study aging across a wide variety of domains.…”