Links Between Daily Life and Laboratory Emotion Regulation Processes: The Role of Age and Cognitive Status.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigates how daily use of emotion regulation (ER) strategies predicts ER processes in the laboratory among young adults and cognitively diverse older adults. METHODS: Young adults (aged 21-34, n = 66), cognitively normal (CN) older adults (aged 70-83, n = 87), and older adults with researcher-defined mild cognitive impairment (MCI; aged 70-84; n = 58) completed an experience sampling procedure (7×/day for 9 days) reporting their distraction and reappraisal use in daily life. In a laboratory task inducing high-arousal negative emotion, they reported their (a) distraction and reappraisal use when instructed to reduce negative emotion and (b) ER success and perceptions when randomly assigned to regulate using distraction or reappraisal. RESULTS: Among CN older adults, a higher frequency of using a strategy in daily life predicted greater success deploying the strategy when instructed to do so but was unrelated to spontaneous strategy use in the laboratory. In contrast, among older adults with researcher-defined MCI, greater daily life strategy use predicted greater laboratory use, but not greater success. Daily strategy use in younger adults was unrelated to strategy use and success in the laboratory. Older adults with researcher-defined MCI experienced ER as more demanding but did not differ from non-impaired individuals in terms of perceived ER effort. DISCUSSION: Cognitively normal older adults may be better able to leverage their ER experience in novel contexts than younger adults. Older adults with MCI may be motivated to manage their emotions but experience more ER difficulty, perhaps in part due to reliance on default strategies.

Perceived responses, capitalization, and daily gratitude: Do age and closeness matter?

Successful capitalization and feelings of gratitude are both dependent upon perceived responsiveness of a social partner, but they are understudied in combination and have yet to be studied jointly in a daily context. Taking a new approach to studying capitalization, the current study examines the effect of daily capitalization on momentary gratitude and investigates the role of the capitalizer's typical perceived responses to capitalization attempts (PRCA) on daily gratitude and future capitalization attempts. Age and social closeness are studied as amplifiers, as older adults prioritize positive emotional experiences and it is more common to capitalize with closer others for whom the capitalizer's good news is salient and who are thus motivated to provide support to the capitalizer. Participants (N = 290) aged 25-85 years completed a trait-level survey followed by ecological momentary assessment surveys (six per day) for 10 days. Results demonstrate that people experienced higher daily gratitude when capitalizing, especially when interacting with a social partner rated as high in closeness. Those who had higher trait active-constructive PRCA also experienced higher daily gratitude, with this effect strengthened among older adults. Perceived responses were also associated with more attempts to capitalize in daily life. This work suggests engaging in capitalization and perceiving regular enthusiastic and supportive responses to one's capitalization attempts have daily emotional and behavioral benefits. Notably, regular enthusiastic responses to capitalization attempts may be a motivator for future attempts across adulthood, but it may be particularly likely to foster feelings of gratitude in old age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Age and Cognitive Ability Predict Emotion Regulation Strategy Use.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines how age and cognitive ability predict use of different emotion regulation strategies in a laboratory task eliciting emotions varying in valence and arousal. METHODS: Participants (N = 287) aged 25-85 completed the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery and an emotion regulation task in a laboratory setting. They watched a series of emotional clips (disgust, sadness, amusement, and contentment) under instructions to increase positive emotions or decrease negative emotions. After each clip, they rated the extent to which they used emotion regulation strategies that involve different types of engagement with emotional stimuli and disengagement from emotional stimuli. RESULTS: Older age was predictive of greater use of immersive-engagement strategies (e.g., perspective taking) and less use of disengagement strategies (e.g., distraction). Fluid cognitive ability was positively associated with immersive-engagement strategy use, particularly for high-arousal clips. For older adults, fluid cognitive ability was also associated with using positive-engagement strategies (e.g., positive reappraisal) to a greater extent to regulate negative emotions. DISCUSSION: Patterns of emotion regulation strategy use varied by age, even when accounting for differences in reactivity. Findings suggest that older adults may not necessarily prefer strategies that are lower in cognitive demands or that focus on enhancing positivity. Results support the idea that strategy preferences are driven by a combination of characteristics of the regulator and the regulation context. The relevance of cognitive resources likely varies across situations, perhaps being most consequential for deeper processing of high-arousal stimuli and for older adults' engagement with positive aspects of an otherwise negative situation.

Age, Resources, and Emotion Regulation Need in Daily-Life Emotional Contexts.

OBJECTIVES: The Strengths and Vulnerabilities Integration model (Charles, 2010) suggests older adults experience difficulty regulating emotions with high-arousal negative stimuli due to decreases in resources. We investigate relationships among age, physical and cognitive resources, emotional experience, and perceived emotion regulation (ER) needs. METHODS: Participants aged 25-85 (N = 290) completed assessments of cognitive ability and physical health. In an experience sampling procedure (6x per day for 10 days), participants reported their momentary emotion experience and perceived need to regulate their emotions. RESULTS: Regardless of arousal level, negative emotion was associated with higher ER need and positive emotion was associated with lower ER need. This pro-hedonic orientation was stronger among older adults and individuals with more cognitive resources. In contrast to predictions, older adults in poor physical health who experience high levels of high-arousal negative emotion on average reported lower ER need compared with younger adults in poor physical health. However, older adults with lower cognitive resources who experience high levels of high-arousal negative emotion on average reported higher ER need. DISCUSSION: Findings suggest that younger age and lower levels of cognitive ability are linked to less perceived need to regulate negative emotional states. Physical vulnerabilities also may dampen the perceived need for regulating high-arousal negative emotions, but only among older adults. Age-related shifts in resources and emotional goals may influence the likelihood that individuals are motivated to engage in ER, as well as the effectiveness of those efforts.

Fluid and crystallized cognitive resources differentially linked to emotion regulation success in adulthood.

Effective emotion regulation (ER) is theorized to require cognitive resources. Past work has identified inconsistent relationships between cognitive ability and ER success and has focused on implementation of instructed ER strategies. In the present study, we examine a wide range of cognitive abilities as predictors of ER success in the absence of constraints on strategy selection. An age-diverse sample of participants (N = 129, age 25-83) completed an ER task in which they viewed film clips eliciting disgust, sadness, and amusement under instructions to regulate in a prohedonic fashion. ER success was measured through self-reports of positive emotion (PA) and negative emotion (NA) following each clip. Fluid and crystallized cognitive ability were assessed with tasks from the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery. Effects of fluid cognition varied by film type, such that fluid cognition was generally less associated with ER success for the disgust clip. Effects of fluid cognition also varied by facet (e.g., processing speed and inhibitory control related to lower NA with the sadness clip, while working memory and episodic memory related to higher PA with the amusement and disgust clips). Crystallized cognition was positively associated with ER success (lower NA) across film types. Findings suggest that both fluid and crystallized cognition are important resources for effective emotion regulation. We propose that crystallized cognition may be particularly important when regulators can rely on life experience to select ER strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Supporting robust research on adult emotional development by considering context.

A criterion for high quality science is to produce findings that are robust and replicable across studies. A potential hinderance to successful replication however is context dependency. To formally address issues of context dependency, context has to be defined and integrated into research and replication practices. Emotion research and particularly research on adult emotional development have long emphasized the importance of context. Drawing on established theories of adult development and existing frameworks of context, we define context as it relates to emotional development in adulthood, highlighting specific aspects of immediate surroundings (familiarity, cognitive demands, and social aspects) as well as sociocultural and socioeconomic context, situated within ontogenetic development and historical time. In order to improve the robustness of research on adult emotional development, we encourage researchers to consider these contextual aspects in formulating and testing research questions as well as when interpreting failed replications. We discuss how to adapt study designs to facilitate more context sensitive adult emotional development research. Considering context not only enables new discoveries in aging research, but also can help clarify significant long-standing research questions and further enhance the robustness of research on adult development in emotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

BFF: Bayesian, Fiducial, and Frequentist Analysis of Cognitive Engagement among Cognitively Impaired Older Adults.

Engagement in cognitively demanding activities is beneficial to preserving cognitive health. Our goal was to demonstrate the utility of frequentist, Bayesian, and fiducial statistical methods for evaluating the robustness of effects in identifying factors that contribute to cognitive engagement for older adults experiencing cognitive decline. We collected a total of 504 observations across two longitudinal waves of data from 28 cognitively impaired older adults. Participants' systolic blood pressure responsivity, an index of cognitive engagement, was continuously sampled during cognitive testing. Participants reported on physical and mental health challenges and provided hair samples to assess chronic stress at each wave. Using the three statistical paradigms, we compared results from six model testing levels and longitudinal changes in health and stress predicting changes in cognitive engagement. Findings were mostly consistent across the three paradigms, providing additional confidence in determining effects. We extend selective engagement theory to cognitive impairment, noting that health challenges and stress appear to be important moderators. Further, we emphasize the utility of the Bayesian and fiducial paradigms for use with relatively small sample sizes because they are not based on asymptotic distributions. In particular, the fiducial paradigm is a useful tool because it provides more information than p values without the need to specify prior distributions, which may unduly influence the results based on a small sample. We provide the R code used to develop and implement all models.

Predictors of engagement in young and older adults: The role of specific activity experience.

Activity that places demands on cognitive resources has positive effects on cognitive health in old age. To further understand determinants of age-group differences in participation, we examined how negative aging stereotypes and responses associated with a cognitively challenging activity influenced future willingness to engage in that activity. Sixty-nine young (20-40 years) and 80 older (63-84 years) adults performed a letter-number sequencing (LNS) task at different levels of demand for 15 min, during which systolic blood pressure responses-a measure of effort mobilization-and subjective perceptions of task demands were assessed. Approximately half the participants were primed with a negative aging stereotype prior to this task. Following the LNS task, participants completed an effort-discounting task, with resulting subjective values indicating their willingness to perform the task at each level of demand. As expected, both subjective and objective indicators of cognitive demands as well as performance were associated with future willingness to engage in a difficult task, with these effects being significantly greater for older adults. In addition, although stereotype activation influenced older adults' engagement levels in the LNS task, it did not moderate willingness. Together, the results indicate that, relative to younger adults, older adults' decisions to engage in cognitively challenging activities are disproportionately affected by their subjective perceptions of demands. Interestingly, actual engagement with the task and associated success result in reduced perceptions of difficulty and greater willingness to engage. Thus, overcoming faulty and discouraging task perceptions may promote older adults' engagement in demanding but potentially beneficial activities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Affective Influences on Older Adults' Attention to Self-Relevant Negative Information.

OBJECTIVES: Some research suggests that older adults have a tendency to be biased toward positive information, but may be more willing to attend to potentially beneficial negative information in certain situations. Following the mood-as-resource framework, one possibility is that older adults may be more willing to consider negative information when in a positive mood, with positive affect serving as a buffer to the adverse emotional consequences that may follow. METHOD: Young (n = 62) and older (n = 65) adults completed a difficult cognitive task before completing either a positive or negative experience recall task, depending upon assigned condition. Afterwards, they rated their interest in viewing their strengths and weaknesses on the previously completed task, and then selected and viewed different types of feedback (i.e., strengths or weaknesses). RESULTS: Older adults in the positive condition selected more weaknesses to view and spent more time viewing weaknesses than older adults in the negative condition. There were no differences across conditions in behavioral results for young adults. Ratings of interest in viewing different types of feedback did not correspond with actual feedback viewing behavior. DISCUSSION: Results highlight the importance of considering older adults' pre-existing mood before addressing self-relevant information that may be negative but important.

The influence of mood versus relevant self-perceptions in older adults' interest in negative health-related information.

Past research suggests that, although older adults may tend to prefer positive over negative information, they may be more willing to consider relevant negative information when in a positive affective state (Growney & Hess, 2017). However, the underlying mechanism involved in this phenomenon is unclear. In the present study, we aimed to identify this mechanism and disentangle mood and self-perceptions as potential personal resources. In Study 1, young and older adults completed either a positive or negative mood manipulation task, or a health manipulation task designed to accentuate positive or negative perceptions of one's health-related behaviors. Participants then selected three of six health-related articles to read based on their headlines, half of which were positively worded and half of which were negative, but offered self-corrective information. Participants in the positive health condition selected more negative health-related articles to read than those in the negative health condition, with the effect being specific to older adults. Simple manipulations of mood had no effect on article selection, suggesting that older adults used their positive self-perceptions as a resource for considering negative information. In addition, endorsement of information goals mediated the relationship between manipulated health behavior perceptions and article selections for both young and older adults. Results from Study 2 demonstrate that effects are specific to situations with high-informative versus low-informative content. Our findings suggest that older adults' willingness to focus on negative self-relevant information is bolstered by enhancing self-perceptions of self within the domain of interest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Motivation moderates the impact of aging stereotypes on effort expenditure.

The impact of aging stereotypes on task engagement was examined. Older adults (N = 144, ages 65 to 85) were exposed to primes designed to activate positive or negative stereotypes about aging, with half of the individuals in each stereotype group also assigned to a high-accountability condition to enhance motivation. Participants performed a memory-scan task comprising 2 levels of demands (memory sets of 4 or 7 items), with 2 blocks (5 min each) at each level. Systolic blood pressure recorded throughout the task was used to monitor engagement levels. High accountability was associated with greater engagement at the highest level of task demands. Negative stereotype activation also resulted in elevated engagement levels, but only during the initial trial blocks in the high-accountability condition. Lowest levels of engagement were associated with low accountability, with no difference between stereotype conditions. An analogous differential analysis on these same data using need for cognition and attitudes toward aging as measures of motivation and stereotypes revealed similar trends. Specifically, negative aging attitudes were associated with elevated levels of engagement only in individuals who were high in intrinsic motivation, with the effects greatest at the highest levels of task demands. The results provide a more nuanced perspective on the impact of negative aging stereotypes than suggested in previous research, with the impact on behavior moderated by situational and personal factors associated with motivation. Although potentially negative in the long run, elevated cardiovascular responses indicative of task engagement may represent an adaptive response to support performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of cognitive costs, attitudes about aging, and intrinsic motivation in predicting engagement in everyday activities.

Engagement in cognitively demanding everyday activities has been shown to benefit cognitive health in later life. We investigated the factors that influence engagement, with specific interest in determining the extent to which the costs of engaging cognitive resources are associated with intrinsic motivation and, ultimately, participation in everyday activities. Older adults (N = 153) aged from 65 to 81 years completed a challenging cognitive task, with the costs of cognitive engagement-operationalized as the effort required to maintain performance-assessed using systolic blood pressure responses (SBP-R). We also assessed participation in everyday activities using both 2-year retrospective reports and five daily reports over a 5-week period. Structural models revealed that lower levels of costs were associated with more positive attitudes about aging, which in turn were associated with higher levels of intrinsic motivation. Motivation was subsequently predictive of everyday activity engagement, with the effect being specific to those activities thought to place demands on cognitive resources. The measure of engagement had minimal impact on the nature of the observed effects, suggesting that the retrospective and weekly assessments were tapping into similar constructs. Taken together, the results are consistent with expectations derived from Selective Engagement Theory (Hess, 2014), which argues that engagement in demanding activities is related to the cost associated with such engagement, which in turn leads to selective participation through changes in motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Use of descriptive and experiential information in decision making by young and older adults.

Age differences involving decision by description versus decision by experience were examined using the same general task structure to facilitate comparisons across decision types. Experiment 1 compared younger (19-43 years) and older (65-85 years) adults in four different experimental conditions involving a choice between a low-risk, low-return bet versus a high-risk, high-return bet. Experiment 2 compared young (18-27 years) to older (60-87 years) adults using similar experimental conditions, but with decisions involving a risky versus a certain option. Contrary to expectations, minimal differences were observed between ages in either study. Higher levels of ability and numeracy were associated with better performance and greater ability to benefit from experience, but the impact of these factors was not moderated by age. The results suggest that factors other than the simple distinction between decisions by description versus experience are necessary to characterize the nature of age effects in decision-making.

Age-Related Effects on Memory for Social Stimuli: The Role of Valence, Arousal, and Emotional Responses.

Background/Study Context: Previous research (Hess et al., 2013, Psychology and Aging, 28, 853-863) suggested that age-based positivity effects in memory were attenuated with social stimuli. This research examined the degree to which this generalized across arousal levels associated with social images. Variations in approach and avoidance responses to individual images were also examined, along with age differences in their relationship to memory performance. METHODS: In Experiment 1, young (22-43 years) and older (65-85 years) adults recalled positive and negative social scenes that were high or low in arousal. In Experiment 2, young (20-40 years) and older (65-83 years) adults viewed and recalled the same scenes under instructions designed to alter arousal, and approach and avoidance ratings for each image were recorded. RESULTS: In Experiment 1, age differences in recall were confined to high-arousal, negative images, with young adults exhibiting superior memory relative to older adults. There was no evidence of an age-related positivity effect for low-arousal social scenes. This result was replicated in Experiment 2, but distancing instructions minimized the age difference in recall for high-arousal, negative images. Approach and avoidance ratings differentially predicted recall across age groups, with stronger associations in the young. CONCLUSION: The results are consistent with emerging evidence demonstrating that valence-based biases associated with aging (e.g., positivity effect) are specific to the context and stimulus characteristics. Differences in prediction of recall responses from approach and avoidance ratings across age groups suggested that the observed effects in memory reflected differences in responses to the characteristics of stimuli.