Responding to the emotions of others: Age differences in facial expressions and age-specific associations with relational connectedness

Abstract

Responding prosocially to the emotion of others may become increasingly important in late life, especially as partners and friends encounter a growing number of losses, challenges, and declines. Facial expressions are important avenues for communicating empathy and concern, and for signaling that help is forthcoming when needed. In a study of young, middle-aged, and older adults, we measured emotional responses (facial expressions, subjective experience, and physiological activation) to a sad, distressing film clip and a happy, uplifting film clip. Results revealed that, relative to younger adults, older adults showed more sadness and confusion/concern facial expressions during the distressing film clip. Moreover, for older adults only, more sadness and fewer disgust facial expressions during the distressing film clip were associated with higher levels of relational connectedness. These findings remained stable when accounting for subjective emotional experience, physiological activation, and trait empathy in response to the film clip. When examining the uplifting film clip, older adults showed more happiness facial expressions relative to younger adults at trend levels. More facial expressions of happiness were associated with higher levels of relational connectedness, but unlike the effect of sadness expressions, this was not moderated by age. These findings underscore an important adaptive social function of facial expressions-particularly in response to the distress of others-in late life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Figure 1.

Age Differences in Facial Expression Responses when Viewing Both Films for Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults Note. † p=.08. **p < .01.

Figure 2.

Simple slopes for sadness facial expression as a predictor of relational connectedness for young, middle-aged, and older adults. Note. Sadness facial expression plotted at low (M−1 SD) and high (M+1 SD) levels. Age plotted at 62.5 years (older adults), 44.4 years (middle aged adults) and 26.21 years (younger adults). Standardized regression coefficients and standard errors are shown. **p < .01.

Figure 3.

Simple slopes for disgust facial expression as a predictor of relational connectedness for young, middle-aged, and older adults. Note. Sadness facial expression plotted at low (M-1 SD) and high (M+1 SD) levels. Age plotted at 62.5 years (older adults), 44.4 years (middle aged adults) and 26.21 years (younger adults). Standardized regression coefficients and standard errors are shown. **p < .01.