Expressive suppression and enhancement during music-elicited emotions in younger and older adults

Abstract

When presented with emotional visual scenes, older adults have been found to be equally capable to regulate emotion expression as younger adults, corroborating the view that emotion regulation skills are maintained or even improved in later adulthood. However, the possibility that gaze direction might help achieve an emotion control goal has not been taken into account, raising the question whether the effortful processing of expressive regulation is really spared from the general age-related decline. Since it does not allow perceptual attention to be redirected away from the emotional source, music provides a useful way to address this question. In the present study, affective, behavioral, and physiological consequences of free expression of emotion, expressive suppression and expressive enhancement were measured in 31 younger and 30 older adults while they listened to positive and negative musical excerpts. The main results indicated that compared to younger adults, older adults reported experiencing less emotional intensity in response to negative music during the free expression of emotion condition. No age difference was found in the ability to amplify or reduce emotional expressions. However, an age-related decline in the ability to reduce the intensity of emotional state and an age-related increase in physiological reactivity were found when participants were instructed to suppress negative expression. Taken together, the current data support previous findings suggesting an age-related change in response to music. They also corroborate the observation that older adults are as efficient as younger adults at controlling behavioral expression. But most importantly, they suggest that when faced with auditory sources of negative emotion, older age does not always confer a better ability to regulate emotions.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of age-related differences in instructed emotion regulation success

“…Young and older adults experience increased SCLs when asked to suppress their expressivity in response to a sad film (Lohani & Isaacowitz, 2014). Other studies have found decreased SCLs among both age groups when asked to suppress negative emotion in response to negative music (Vieillard, Harm & Bigand, 2015) and disgusting films (Kunzmann, Kupperbusch & Levenson, 2005) with the former showing some evidence that older adults experience a longer lasting decrease in SCL.…”

“…All studies assessing behavioral outcomes using facial EMG have found that both young and older adults are equally able to reduce their facial reactivity when instructed to suppress their expression of emotion. This has been demonstrated in response to positive and negative music (Vieillard, Harm & Bigand, 2015), sad films (Lohani & Isaacowitz, 2014), and negative images (Pedder et al, 2016). However, physiological data shows that suppression of negative emotion in response to music results in higher systolic blood pressure among older, but not younger adults (Vieillard, Harm & Bigand, 2015).…”

“…This has been demonstrated in response to positive and negative music (Vieillard, Harm & Bigand, 2015), sad films (Lohani & Isaacowitz, 2014), and negative images (Pedder et al, 2016). However, physiological data shows that suppression of negative emotion in response to music results in higher systolic blood pressure among older, but not younger adults (Vieillard, Harm & Bigand, 2015). They suggest this may indicate that the suppression of negative emotional content is more cognitively and physiologically demanding for older adults than for younger adults.…”

“…Similarly, Pedder et al (2016) found no age differences in subjective happiness/unhappiness when participants were asked to minimize facial expressions of emotion in response to both positive and negative films. There also does not appear to be any age-related difference in subjective reactivity when asked to enhance emotional expression in response to positive and negative music (Vieillard, Harm & Bigand, 2015) and negative images (C. M. Van Reekum & D. Lloyd, 2016, unpublished data). However, relative to young adults, older adults self-report experiencing more intense negative affect when asked to suppress emotion expression in response to high arousal negative music (Vieillard, Harm & Bigand, 2015).…”

Metrological Approach to Measurements of Emotions Being Expected in Response to Acoustic Impacts

“…• sensitivity to sad and scary music drops [21,22]; scary music is assessed more positively; sad music is perceived as less sad [23]; negative music causes less emotional tension [24];…”