Adult age differences in frequency estimations of happy and angry faces

Abstract

With increasing age, the ratio of gains to losses becomes more negative, which is reflected in expectations that positive events occur with a high likelihood in young adulthood, whereas negative events occur with a high likelihood in old age. Little is known about expectations of social events. Given that younger adults are motivated to establish new social relations, they should be vigilant towards signals of opportunities for socializing, such as smiling faces. Older adults, who are particularly motivated to avoid negative encounters, should be vigilant towards negative social signals, such as angry faces. Thus, younger adults should overestimate the occurrence of positive social signals, whereas older adults should overestimate the occurrence of negative social signals. Two studies (Study 1: n = 91 younger and n = 89 older adults; Study 2: n = 50 younger and n = 50 older adults) partly supported these hypotheses using frequency estimates of happy and angry faces. Although both younger and older adults overestimated the frequency of angry compared to happy faces, the difference was significantly more pronounced for older adults. FREQUENCY ESTIMATION OF EMOTIONAL FACES 2 AbstractWith increasing age, the ratio of gains to losses becomes more negative, which is reflected in

Older adults detect happy facial expressions less rapidly

“…Gupta [21] argued that it is important to detect positive stimuli, as these impart clues as to how we should behave. The utility of positive stimuli (including happy faces) might be particularly important in young adults, who are assumed to want to build and expand social relationships (future investments) [39]. When establishing new relationships is important, it is natural to focus on happy faces, because these indicate how one might advance one's social career or social status.…”

Motivation and Psychotherapy in Older Adults with Care Needs and Depression

“…Further, avoidance goals show that interpersonal judgments become more important as well as fears of physical deterioration, no longer being able to control oneself, and being dependent on others. In addition to this result, based on previous evidence (Carstensen et al, 1999;Nikitin & Freund, 2015), the assumption is that the avoidance goals for older people focus more on interpersonal assessment and fears (physical decline, loss of control, dependence on others). Despite the lack of existing research, Maercker et al (2015) observed in clinical practice that the treatment goals of "old" older adults in need of long-term care differ from those of "young" older adults.…”

“…Further, we expect differences in functional independence. The assumption is that the avoidance goals for older people focus more on interpersonal assessment and fears (Carstensen et al, 1999;Nikitin & Freund, 2015). Thus, we assume that there should be differences in the participants with high and low Barthel Index scores because the treatment goals of "old" older adults in need of long-term care differ from those of "young" older adults (Maercker et al, 2015).…”

Be Happy Not Sad for Your Youth: The Effect of Emotional Expression on Age Perception

“…A face (400 by 400 pixels), centered on the screen, was presented for 100 ms after the fixation cross. The brief stimulus presentation was employed to eliminate or minimize the occurrence of deliberate eye saccades [ 21 ], as similarly done in previous studies [ 14 – 16 , 22 , 23 ]. Also, it has been shown that people can make rapid social judgments even from only brief (e.g., 100 ms) exposures of faces without significantly increasing reliability when given more time [ 24 ].…”