Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Apr:56:101763.
doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101763. Epub 2023 Nov 23.

Beyond strategies: The when and why of emotion regulation in aging

Derek M Isaacowitz  1 , Tammy English  2
Affiliations
Review

Beyond strategies: The when and why of emotion regulation in aging

Derek M Isaacowitz et al. Curr Opin Psychol. 2024 Apr.

Erratum in

Abstract

Most research to date on potential age differences in emotion regulation has focused on whether older adults differ from younger adults in how they manage their emotions. We argue for a broader consideration of the possible effects of aging on emotion regulation by moving beyond tests of age differences in strategy use to also consider when and why emotion regulation takes place. That is, we encourage deeper consideration of contextual factors that spark regulation as well as the goals and motives underlying individuals' attempts to regulate their emotions. There may be age-related variation in all, some, or none of these components of emotion regulation. Descriptive work across all dimensions of emotion regulation is necessary to test and refine theories of emotional aging.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References

    1. Allen VC, & Windsor TD (2019). Age differences in the use of emotion regulation strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation: a systematic review. Aging & Mental Health, 23(1), 1–14. 10.1080/13607863.2017.1396575 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Benson L, English T, Conroy DE, Pincus AL, Gerstorf D, & Ram N (2019). Age differences in emotion regulation strategy use, variability, and flexibility: An experience sampling approach. Developmental Psychology, 55(9), 1951–1964. 10.1037/dev0000727 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Blanchard-Fields F (2007). Everyday problem solving and emotion: An adult developmental perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(1), 26–31.
    1. Blanke ES, Brose A, Kalokerinos EK, Erbas Y, Riediger M, & Kuppens P (2020). Mix it to fix it: Emotion regulation variability in daily life. Emotion, 20(3), 473. - PubMed
    1. Burr DA, Castrellon JJ, Zald DH, & Samanez-Larkin GR (2021). Emotion dynamics across adulthood in everyday life: Older adults are more emotionally stable and better at regulating desires. Emotion, 21(3), 453–464. 10.1037/emo0000734 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources