Another year older, another year wiser? Emotion regulation strategy selection and flexibility across adulthood.

Abstract

Several influential theories posit that improvements in emotion regulation contribute to enhanced emotional well-being in older adulthood. However, surprisingly little is known about whether there are age differences in emotion regulation strategy use. We addressed this question by testing whether older adults report using typically adaptive strategies more often and regulate more flexibly than relatively younger adults. In a two-part study, 136 married couples (N = 272) aged 23-85 years completed individual difference measures of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, and then nine daily reports of a broader range of emotion regulation strategies, now including situation selection, situation modification, and distraction. Older adults reported greater habitual use of suppression, but age did not predict situation selection, situation modification, distraction, or reappraisal. In terms of emotion regulation flexibility, a similar number of strategies were reported on a daily basis regardless of the regulator's age. Unexpectedly, relatively older adults were less variable in their self-reported daily use of each strategy and middle-aged adults were the least variable in their strategy repertoire across different days. These findings counter the common notion that older adults use typically adaptive strategies more than younger adults. Instead, they suggest older adults may be more consistent in their emotion regulation patterns across situations, potentially suggestive of less flexibility. Implications for aging, emotion regulation, and well-being are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Individual differences in emotion regulation goals: Does personality predict the reasons why people regulate their emotions?

“…The sample had 136 married couples ( N = 272), ages 23–85 years ( M = 53.24, SD = 18.23), who were recruited for a larger study on emotion regulation in adulthood (Eldesouky & English, ); 83.6% were European/European American, 9.3% were African American, 1.9% were Hispanic or Latin American, and 5.2% were Multiracial or Other. Eligibility criteria were having Internet access, being married to someone who was not more than 10 years older, and not having significant cognitive impairment (as screened via the Mini‐Mental Exam; Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, ).…”

“…The Big Five might be stronger predictors of emotional experiences and the desire to influence them in younger adults than in older adults. Perhaps one reason is because emotional experience (Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, & Nesselroade, 2000) and emotion regulation (Eldesouky & English, 2018a) are more stable in older age. To the extent that emotional processes are more stable, it might be more difficult to differentially predict them in older samples.…”

Understanding Emotion Inflexibility in Risk for Affective Disease: Integrating Current Research and Finding a Path Forward

“…Alternatively, researchers have investigated natural or spontaneous variability and utility of emotion regulatory strategy use in daily life via experience sampling as well as in some lab paradigms. Indeed, across a number of investigations it is increasingly clear that individuals generally report that they rely on multiple strategies in daily life, sometimes at one point in time, with astonishing variability (e.g., Brockman et al., 2017; Kalokerinos et al., 2017; Eldesouky and English, 2018). Moreover, it is also clear that specific strategies are variable in their perceived (self-reported) effectiveness as well as on objective indices of affective change pre- and post-strategy reports both via experience sampling (e.g., Heiy and Cheavens, 2014) and in lab (Gruber et al., 2012).…”

Emotional Creativity Across Adulthood: Age is Negatively Associated with Emotional Creativity

“…Interestingly, older adults showed improvements in the cognitive control of emotions, specifically in habitual use of problem-solving as an emotion-regulation strategy (Le Vigouroux, Pavani, Dauvier, Kop, & Congard, 2017), in using positive reappraisal (Lohani & Isaacowitz, 2014;Shiota & Levenson, 2009), in habitual reappraisal use (John & Gross, 2004;Le Vigouroux et al, 2017;Masumoto, Taishi, & Shiozaki, 2016), in down-regulating feelings of disgust (Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009) or in habitual suppression use (Brummer, Stopa, & Bucks, 2014;Eldesouky & English, 2018;Nolen-Hoeksema & Aldao, 2011). These improvements are often ascribed to the benefits arising from the accumulation of experience with processing various emotions during the life course (Blanchard-Fields, 2007, 2009.…”