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. 2021 Apr;21(3):453-464.
doi: 10.1037/emo0000734. Epub 2020 Mar 19.

Emotion dynamics across adulthood in everyday life: Older adults are more emotionally stable and better at regulating desires

Daisy A Burr  1 , Jaime J Castrellon  1 , David H Zald  2 , Gregory R Samanez-Larkin  1
Affiliations

Emotion dynamics across adulthood in everyday life: Older adults are more emotionally stable and better at regulating desires

Daisy A Burr et al. Emotion. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

Older adults report experiencing improved emotional health, such as more intense positive affect and less intense negative affect. However, there are mixed findings on whether older adults are better at regulating emotion-a hallmark feature of emotional health-and most research is based on laboratory studies that may not capture how people regulate their emotions in everyday life. We used experience sampling to examine how multiple measures of emotional health, including mean affect, dynamic fluctuations between affective states and the ability to resist desires-a common form of emotion regulation-differ in daily life across adulthood. Participants (N = 122, ages 20-80) reported how they were feeling and responding to desire temptations for 10 days. Older adults experienced more intense positive affect, less intense negative affect, and were more emotionally stable, even after controlling for individual differences in global life satisfaction. Older adults were more successful at regulating desires, even though they experienced more intense desires than younger adults. In addition, adults in general experiencing more intense affect were less successful at resisting desires. These results demonstrate how emotional experience is related to more successful desire regulation in everyday life and provide unique evidence that emotional health and regulation improve with age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Effects of age and global life satisfaction (well-being) on positive and negative affect (n = 117). Top left: significant positive effect of age on positive affect after controlling for well-being. Top right: significant negative effect of age on negative affect after controlling for well-being. Bottom left: non-significant interaction between age and well-being on positive affect. Bottom right: significant interaction between age and well-being on negative affect. All predictor variables are mean centered for analysis. Well-being is based on mean Satisfaction With Life Scale. Regression lines are the model fit and shading represents the 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Effects of age and global life satisfaction (well-being) on positive and negative affective instability (n = 113). Top left: significant positive effect of age on positive affective instability after controlling for well-being. Top right: significant negative effect of age on negative affective instability after controlling for well-being. Middle left: non-significant effect of well-being on positive affective instability. Middle right: non-significant effect of well-being on negative affective instability. Bottom left: non-significant interaction between age and well-being on positive affective instability. Bottom right: significant interaction between age and well-being on negative affective instability. All predictor variables are mean centered for analysis. Positive and negative affect instability are based on the root mean squared successive differences of affect ratings across all measurement occasions. Well-being is based on mean Satisfaction With Life Scale. Regression lines are the model fit and shading represents the 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Standardized (mean-centered) regression coefficients from multilevel logistic regression predicting successful regulation of desires (n = 113). Well-being is based on mean Satisfaction With Life Scale. Positive and negative affect instability are based on the root mean squared successive differences of affect ratings across all measurement occasions.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Effect of interaction between age and global life satisfaction (well-being) on probability of successful regulation from multilevel logistic regression predicting successful regulation of desires (n = 113). Well-being is based on mean Satisfaction With Life Scale.
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