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Emotional Experience in Everyday Life Across the Adult Life Span

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Laura L. Carstensen
Laura L. Carstensen
Laura L. Carstensen
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Monisha Pasupathi at University of Utah
Monisha Pasupathi
Ulrich Mayr at University of Oregon
Ulrich Mayr
John R Nesselroade at University of Virginia
John R Nesselroade
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Abstract

Age differences in emotional experience over the adult life span were explored, focusing on the frequency, intensity, complexity, and consistency of emotional experience in everyday life. One hundred eighty-four people, age 18 to 94 years, participated in an experience-sampling procedure in which emotions were recorded across a 1-week period. Age was unrelated to frequency of positive emotional experience. A curvilinear relationship best characterized negative emotional experience. Negative emotions declined in frequency until approximately age 60, at which point the decline ceased. Individual factor analyses computed for each participant revealed that age was associated with more differentiated emotional experience. In addition, periods of highly positive emotional experience were more likely to endure among older people and periods of highly negative emotional experience were less stable. Findings are interpreted within the theoretical framework of socioemotional selectivity theory.
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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
2000,
Vol. 79, No. 4, 644-655Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
0022-351<M»/$5.00 DOI: I O.1037//O022-3 514.79.4.644
Emotional Experience in Everyday Life Across the Adult Life Span
Laura L. Carstensen
Stanford UniversityMonisha Pasupathi
University of Utah
Ulrich Mayr
University of OregonJohn R. Nesselroade
University of Virginia
Age differences in emotional experience over the adult life span were explored, focusing on the
frequency, intensity, complexity, and consistency of emotional experience in everyday life. One hundred
eighty-four people, age 18 to 94 years, participated in an experience-sampling procedure in which
emotions were recorded across a
1-week
period. Age was unrelated to frequency of positive emotional
experience. A curvilinear relationship best characterized negative emotional experience. Negative emo-
tions declined in frequency until approximately age 60, at which point the decline ceased. Individual
factor analyses computed for each participant revealed thai age was associated with more differentiated
emotional experience. In addition, periods of highly positive emotional experience were more likely to
endure among older people and periods of highly negative emotional experience were less stable.
Findings are interpreted within the theoretical framework of socioemotional selectivity theory.
Emotions are central to human functioning, guiding thought and
action from the earliest days of life (Frijda, 1988). In recent years,
research has revealed much about the astonishing developmental
gains made early in life concerning emotional differentiation (e.g.,
Camras, Sullivan, & Michel, 1993) and regulation (e.g., Rothbart
& Ahadi, 1994). The social nature of emotion is evident through-
out this literature. It appears that early on, regulation of emotion is
situated outside of the individual, with caregivers playing a pri-
mary role in soothing, exciting, comforting, and otherwise influ-
encing infants' emotions. Gradually, however, regulatory pro-
cesses are internalized; cognitive appraisals of the emotional
significance of environmental stimuli begin to influence emotional
responses (Lazarus, 1991). Although far less is known about the
developmental course of emotional experience and regulation in
adulthood, it is clear that successful regulation of emotion is
central to functioning in interpersonal relationships, coping with
life's hardships, and optimizing mental health.
We expect that part of the reason emotional development was
not studied in adulthood until relatively recently relates to long-
held presumptions that emotional functioning in later life parallels
biological and cognitive functioning in adulthood and old age,
namely leveling in late adolescence and early adulthood, remain-
Laura L. Carstensen, Department of Psychology, Stanford University;
Monisha Pasupathi, Department of Psychology, University of
Utah;
Ulrich
Mayr, Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Ger-
many; John R. Nesselroade, Department of Psychology, University of
Virginia.
This research was funded by National Institute on Aging Grant
RO1AG08816. We thank Susan T. Charles and Helene Fung for their
criticisms of earlier versions of this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Laura L.
Carstensen, Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall, Stanford University,
Stanford, California 94305-2130. Electronic mail may be sent to
Uc@psych.stanford.edu.
ing reasonably stable in midlife, and becoming dysregulated and
rigid in old age (cf. Bromley, 1990). Yet, evidence for emotional
degradation in adulthood is hard to come by. On the contrary, a
small but growing literature on the adulthood course of emotion
paints a distinctly positive picture and suggests that improvements
in emotional functioning may continue well into middle-age and
perhaps old age (Carstensen & Charles, 1999). Older as compared
with younger adults, for example, display increasing complexity
in mental representations, infused by affect and subjectivity
(Labouvie-Vief, DeVoe, & Bulka, 1989; see also Isaacowitz,
Charles, & Carstensen, 1999); report better emotional regulation
(Gross et al., 1997; Labouvie-Vief, Hakim-Larson, DeVoe, &
Schoeberlein, 1989; Lawton, Kleban, & Dean, 1993); display
well-preserved expressive systems (Levenson, Carstensen, Friesen, &
Ekman,
1991;
Tsai, Levenson, & Carstensen, in press; Malatesta &
Kalnok, 1984); and are relatively happy (Diener & Diener, 1996)
and satisfied with life (Herzog & Rodgers, 1981). In a recent
survey, Mroczek and Kolarz (1998) found that age was associated
with a self-reported increase in positive affect and a decrease in
negative affect. Studies also suggest that the salience of emotion
may increase with age, such that emotional material is better
remembered (Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994), is more central in
cognitive representations of other people (Carstensen & Fredrick-
son, 1998; Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990), and is more centrally
involved in problem solving about interpersonal matters
(Blanchard-Fields, 1997).
Two life span developmental theories, which have instigated
much of the empirical work described above, suggest that emo-
tional development continues in adulthood. Both theories draw
heavily on the idea that because age and experience are inextrica-
bly intertwined and because experience and knowledge about
emotions play an important role in emotion regulation, aging may
be associated with emotional maturation. Labouvie-Vief and her
colleagues have contended that cognitive functioning becomes
infused with affectivity in later adulthood such that peak intellec-
644
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... We also find that age is statistically significant in all the tested hypotheses (see Table 4), whereby age is positively related to PA and negatively related to NA. Previous scholars revealed that PA increases until one reaches 81 years of age (Gana et al., 2015), and NA decreases with age, until approximately 60 years of age (Carstensen et al., 2000;Charles et al., 2001). This might occur because, along with increasing age, people may be able to remain happy for longer while simultaneously letting go of unpleasant experiences with ease (Carstensen et al., 2000). ...
... Previous scholars revealed that PA increases until one reaches 81 years of age (Gana et al., 2015), and NA decreases with age, until approximately 60 years of age (Carstensen et al., 2000;Charles et al., 2001). This might occur because, along with increasing age, people may be able to remain happy for longer while simultaneously letting go of unpleasant experiences with ease (Carstensen et al., 2000). Hence, since the average age of the respondents was 36.2 years of age, it is likely that they were at an age where they could maintain positive affect longer and let go of negative experiences easily that would have led to negative affect. ...
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