Laura L. Carstensen’s research while affiliated with Stanford University and other places


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Publications (200)


DAILY AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES AND NEEDS IN OLDER AGES: A MIXED METHODS STUDY
  • Article

December 2024

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8 Reads

Innovation in Aging

Michelle Cruz

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Li Chu

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Laura Paola Gomezjurado Gonzalez

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[...]

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Laura Carstensen

Modern societies face two trends that are seemingly unrelated yet concurrently impacting our lives: population aging and technological advancements. Both trends are happening rapidly in today’s society, and in combination raise an important question: How can we guide future technologies and their deliveries to better suit older adults’ needs so older adults are not “left behind” in the fast-changing cultural shifts due to technological advancements? A growing body of literature captures technological needs and problems among older adults. Yet, many of these studies used relatively small sample sizes consisting of relatively young older adults who are homogeneous in terms of race and ethnicity to represent all older adults. The present study utilizes a mixed methods design to ensure qualitative findings are generalizable. We recruited a racially diverse sample of Asian, Black/African, Hispanic, and White community-dwelling older adults over the age of 75 from the San Francisco Bay Area to form eight focus groups. Participants freely discussed their daily challenges and needs, and how technology may meet these needs. With manual coding and natural language processing techniques, we identified close to 30 areas where technologies may contribute to daily life. Findings from the qualitative sessions and a follow-up survey will be presented. Our findings have the potential to inform service providers, government, technologists, and entrepreneurs how they can better support older adults who are independent living but have started to observe difficulties.


OLDER ADULTS AS RESOURCES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

December 2024

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5 Reads

Innovation in Aging

As California rolls out universal transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds, the public school system faces a shortage of teachers and paraeducators to meet minimum adult–child ratios. Given age-related strengths in the social-emotional domain, older adults may be especially well-suited to support young children’s developmental needs. We are currently forming and researching programs that bring older adults into early childhood education classrooms to support children in various capacities. Many schools have used volunteers, but our focus is paid hourly and salaried positions. To inform program development, we collected qualitative and quantitative data from 8 early childhood center directors and 10 adults aged 55–73 who indicated interest in working with young children. Directors’ top-rated goals were to recruit people who would contribute to a calm, inviting classroom environment, support children’s social-emotional needs, and lower adult-child ratios. Directors also reported concerns, including older adults being unable to meet the physical demands of the job. Older adults’ top-rated reasons for being interested were wanting to have an emotionally meaningful experience and make a difference for young children. Information learned from these data was used to inform the creation of pilot programs at sites in Los Angeles, Fresno, and Santa Cruz, California. At baseline and the end of the programs, we are collecting assessments from classroom teachers, directors, and older adult participants to examine effects of the program on classroom environment, attitudes toward older adults, and older adults’ well-being. We will discuss barriers to program implementation and methods for successfully recruiting and retaining participants.


MOTIVATING INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIORS FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN

December 2024

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13 Reads

Innovation in Aging

Rapid technological advancements demand constant adaptation, which may be particularly unappealing for older adults. As people age, goal priorities shift from exploration to emotional meaning, but modern technology often overlooks this aspect, reducing motivation for older adults to learn. This pre-registered study aims to understand how alignment of information with age-relevant motivation may change people’s information-seeking behaviors. We hypothesized a negative association between age and information-seeking behaviors. Moreover, this association is hypothesized to be moderated by emotional meaning, such that the positive relationship is amplified when technology emphasizes emotional meaning, indicating that older adults are as, if not more, interested in technology compared to younger adults when technology aligns with one’s age-related motivation. We will report findings from an online experiment on a life-span sample of approximately 300 participants. On the data collection website, participants will view eight technological products and choose which ones to explore further. By clicking on the product, a new sentence about the product will be displayed, so the number of clicks and the duration of reading each product may be indices of people’s information-seeking tendencies. Products are randomly assigned to emphasize exploration, social networking, entertainment, or deepening connections with loved ones (the emotionally meaningful option).


THE NEW MAP OF LIFE: TRANSFORMING THE COURSE OF LONG LIVES THROUGH IMPACT-DRIVEN RESEARCH

December 2024

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2 Reads

Innovation in Aging

The global rise in life expectancy and the emergence of societies that are more age-diverse than ever before in human history call for a re-design of the life course.The Stanford Center on Longevity released the New Map of Life- a report detailing principles to guide research, policies, and interventions aimed at improving long lives and age-diverse societies, taking advantage of the opportunities these demographic changes entail. These have already influenced recommendations by key organizations, including the National Academy of Medicine and the World Economic Forum. This symposium offers the first look into research findings guided by the New Map of Life and their translation into actionable recommendations. First, Weiss presents an innovative approach to model long life trajectories based on Artificial Intelligence that outperforms current life expectancy and morbidity calculators. On the population level, Ashwin presents macroeconomic challenges and advantages of longevity, highlighting differences between aging societies and long-living societies. Growney describes a pilot program leveraging older adults’ strengths in early childhood education classrooms. Rangan presents findings from a study of graduating medical students highlighting the need to revamp medical education to address a severe lack of training in older adult medical care. Finally, Chu presents focus-group findings exploring older adults’ technological needs and challenges in daily life, which can alter aging experiences. All presenters detail specific ways in which their findings can inform stakeholders’ actions. Prof. Carstensen will conclude by discussing the broad picture emerging from these studies and their importance for further development of the framework.


AGE AND EMOTION: AGE MODERATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MIXED EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING

December 2024

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5 Reads

Innovation in Aging

Aging is associated with higher levels of emotional well-being, with older adults experiencing more positive emotions, fewer negative emotions, and more mixed emotions in daily life. Mixed emotional experiences (reporting more than one type of emotion during the same period) may indicate more emotional complexity and adaptive functioning. Alternatively, it may indicate degraded emotional experience. Here, we examined the relationship between everyday positive, negative, and mixed emotional experiences with life satisfaction, trait-level positive emotion, psychological well-being, and depression. Participants in an experience sampling study (n =180, aged 18 to 93, M = 56.9) reported their emotions at five randomly selected times each day for seven days. As expected, reports of positive emotions were associated with life satisfaction and trait-level positive emotion, while negative emotions were associated with depression and inversely correlated with psychological well-being. Interestingly, the association of negative emotions with depression was weaker in older participants, suggesting that older people may be more resistant to clinical depression even in the face of negative emotions. Most interestingly, we found that mixed emotional states were associated with increased psychological well-being among older adults but decreased psychological well-being in younger adults. Older adults’ increased psychological well-being in relation to mixed emotions and their resilience to the effects of negative emotion are consistent with adaptive, age-related changes in emotional experience and well-being. These findings highlight the differential effects of experiential positive, negative, and mixed emotions on various measures of well-being, with younger and older adults experiencing key differences in emotional drivers of well-being.


THE CLOSER THE BETTER? AGE DIFFERENCES IN EXPRESSING EMOTIONS TO OTHERS

December 2024

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4 Reads

Innovation in Aging

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory posits that as people age and future time horizons shorten, they prioritize emotional meaning over exploration. As a result, they selectively narrow their social networks to focus on close and emotionally meaningful relationships. Thus, older adults may be more likely to express their feelings to close social partners and benefit more emotionally from sharing their feelings in close relationships as compared to more distant ones. In an experience sampling study collected at five randomly selected times per day for seven days, 180 participants (aged 18 to 93, M = 57.3) reported whether they talked to someone about their emotions, their relationship to that person (spouse/partner, family, friend, acquaintance, coworker, stranger), and whether they felt better after talking to that person. On average, participants felt better after talking to someone about their emotions regardless of their relationship with that person, although they felt significantly better when they shared with close social partners (spouse/partner, family, friend) as compared to peripheral social partners (acquaintances, coworkers, strangers). While age was not significantly associated with the likelihood of expressing feelings to another person, sharing feelings with a family member was associated with feeling significantly better among older participants as compared to younger ones. These findings indicate that sharing feelings with others, no matter their relationship, can benefit emotional well-being at all ages. However, close social relationships provide the most emotional benefit and familial ones appear to play an especially important role at relatively advanced ages.


CAN NUDGES REDUCE THE SHARING OF MISINFORMATION ONLINE? EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE ACROSS THE LIFESPAN

December 2024

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2 Reads

Innovation in Aging

Observational data on online behavior indicates that older adults are more likely to share misinformation than younger adults. Thus, identifying scalable strategies to reduce older adults’ sharing of misinformation is imperative. This study investigates the potential for 1-sentence text-based nudges appearing alongside online news to reduce intentions to share misinformation. A lifespan sample of American adults (aged 18-99, M=49.1, SD=20.8) was shown online news headlines fact-checked as true or false by professional fact-checkers and asked about their intentions to share each headline. Alongside each headline, participants saw nudges that varied in two ways: (1) whether they were emotionally meaningful or not and (2) whether they were presented in a novel manner or not. Drawing on socioemotional selectivity theory, which posits that as people’s time horizons shrink they prioritize emotional meaning, we expected that emotionally meaningful nudges would be more likely to reduce older adults’ sharing of misinformation. Interestingly, in contrast to studies based on online behavioral data, we found that in a survey context older adults were less likely to report intentions to share misinformation online than younger adults, even after controlling for baseline sharing tendencies and other covariates. We found that novel nudges were more effective than non-novel nudges at reducing intentions to share misinformation across all ages, and that novel nudges were more effective than accuracy nudges, another popular intervention (Pennycook et al. 2021). Emotionally meaningful nudges were not more effective for older adults. This study draws implications for designing effective interventions against misinformation sharing across the lifespan.


What’s Time Got to Do With It? Appreciation of Time Influences Social Goals and Emotional Well-Being
  • Literature Review
  • Publisher preview available

December 2024

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35 Reads

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1 Citation

Psychology and Aging

Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) maintains that perceived constraints on time horizons motivate people to optimize emotionally meaningful experiences in the present, whereas expansive time horizons lead people to pursue goals that hold future utility. Theoretically, the prioritizing of goals about emotional meaning contributes to the relatively high levels of emotional well-being and mental health observed in older people. The present article provides an overview of SST and places it in historical context, noting the differences and similarities it shares with contemporaneous approaches. We briefly review support for core theoretical postulates and consider a recent set of empirical findings that speak against the role of perceived time on emotional well-being. We argue that existing survey measures of time horizons do not capture the increasing value and appreciation of remaining time posited in SST and describe the development of and evidence for a new Appreciation of Remaining Time scale. We conclude with a discussion about the need for theoretical precision in research and, more broadly, the need to consider explanations for age differences that extend beyond compensation for loss to fully understand socioemotional development in adulthood.

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Momentary Savoring in Daily Life in an Adult Life-Span Sample

September 2024

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28 Reads

Emotion

Savoring moments can foster well-being. Older adults are theorized to prioritize emotional well-being in daily life, which directs their attention to positive aspects of life. In this study, with data collected from 2018 to 2021, 285 adults aged 25–85 completed an experience sampling procedure (six times a day for 10 days) where they reported their experienced emotions, whether they were savoring the moment, and how close they felt to their most recent social partner. They also completed a trait-level questionnaire on psychological well-being. Across the age range, individuals were more likely to savor moments when they were with close social partners. Older people were more likely than younger people to report savoring when experiencing high levels of positive affect. The tendency to savor was also tied to psychological well-being among individuals independent of their age. Findings highlight the relational aspect of savoring in daily contexts and suggest that savoring may contribute to well-being, helping to account for age advantages in well-being.


The Role of Executive Function in Cognitive Reappraisal: A Meta-Analytic Review

June 2024

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172 Reads

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2 Citations

Emotion

Cognitive reappraisal refers to the reinterpretation of a situation to alter its emotional meaning. Theoretically, executive functions (EFs), such as inhibition, updating, and shifting, are core elements of reappraisal processes. However, empirical studies have yielded inconsistent evidence as to whether and to what extent EFs are associated with reappraisal. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analysis of the literature in which 179 effect sizes from 59 independent samples (N = 4,703) were included. Using random-effects metaregression with robust-variance estimates and small-sample corrections, we also examined whether variation in effect sizes could be accounted for by potential moderators, such as the way reappraisal was assessed (i.e., questionnaires vs. task-based measures) and the type of stimuli used in EF tasks (i.e., affective vs. nonaffective). Overall, results indicate relatively small to typical associations between reappraisal and all three EFs (rs = .13–.19). While the way reappraisal was measured did not moderate any of the relations between EF and reappraisal, we found stronger relations between inhibition and reappraisal when EF was assessed using tasks that involved affective, relative to nonaffective, stimuli. Our meta-analytic findings offer modest support for the idea that EFs are cognitive constituents of reappraisal processes.


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Citations (68)


... Consistent with this pursuit, we are pleased to introduce four articles that contribute to the journey from framework to theory and back again. Carstensen et al. (2024) present a wide-ranging review examining the history of socioemotional selectivity theory, which has influenced research on how aging impacts emotional experience and social relationships for more than 30 years. The core assumption of this theory is that the foreshortening of the temporal horizon with aging drives an increase in motivation for emotional satisfaction. ...

Reference:

Advancing Theory-Driven Research in the Psychological Science of Adult Development and Aging
What’s Time Got to Do With It? Appreciation of Time Influences Social Goals and Emotional Well-Being

Psychology and Aging

... CR is an emotion regulation strategy that involves altering one's emotional response by reinterpreting the initial cognitive assessment of a situation. Specifically, it entails transforming an automatically generated negative thought into a more positive or neutral interpretation, thus changing its emotional impact [27,28]. Research has discovered a negative correlation between child maltreatment and CR, with maltreated children exhibiting less usage of CR compared to those not maltreated [29]. ...

The Role of Executive Function in Cognitive Reappraisal: A Meta-Analytic Review

Emotion

... SST is rooted in the idea that the passage of time shapes the prioritization of social goals. More specifically, it maintains that younger people tend to perceive longer and more expansive time horizons in life, and therefore prioritize exploration, novel experiences, and knowledge acquisition, whereas older people tend to recognize their time left in life is more limited, and therefore prioritize emotional meaning and the present (Carstensen 2021;Chu et al. 2024). SST also argues that these age-related differences in social priorities lead people to proactively prune their social networks as they age, to reduce novelty and exploration and focus more energy and attention on their most emotionally meaningful, core relationships (Carstensen et al. 1999;Fredrickson and Carstensen 1990). ...

Age-Related Emotional Advantages in Encountering Novel Situation in Daily Life

Psychology and Aging

... However, the relationships among cognitive engagement, meaningfulness, and emotions at work can be complex and age dependent. Older workers may experience more negative emotions with greater cognitive engagement, but this effect is mitigated when work is perceived as meaningful, and they show stronger associations between cognitive engagement and positive outcomes such as pride and time-savoring (Johnson et al., 2023). These emotion regulation patterns and age-related differences may enhance work engagement and self-rated task performance (Dello Russo et al., 2021;Scheibe et al., 2019). ...

AGE DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION-RELATED OUTCOMES OF COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT AND MEANINGFULNESS AT WORK

Innovation in Aging

... Physiological Assessment. The physiological signature of emotion dimensions, as well as discrete affective states, has been of great interest among affective scientists and sport psychologists (Hatfield & Landers, 1983;Lang et al., 1998;Lench, Flores, & Bench, 2011 (Coombes et al., 2012a;Dörfel et al., 2014;Kolesar, Kornelsen, & Smith, 2017;Perciavalle et al., 2013;Pereira et al., 2010;Samanez-Larkin, Robertson, Mikels, Carstensen, & Gotlib, 2014;Sarkheil et al., 2015) and EEG (e.g., Cuthbert, Schupp, Bradley, Birbaumer, & Lang, 2000;Krendl, Zucker, & Kensinger, 2017;Lee & Hsieh, 2014;Mavratzakis, Herbert, & Walla, 2016;Soleymani, Asghari-Esfeden, Fu, & Pantic, 2016) are two of many such tools that permit exploration of the neural bases of emotion. Alterations in neural and psychophysiological processes derived from these methods allow researchers to better characterize the scope and specific characteristics of various affective states. ...

Selective Attention to Emotion in the Aging Brain

Motivation Science

... According to socioemotional selectivity theory, future time perspective changes how goals and actions are prioritized with reference to present-focused versus future-focused at individual level (Carstensen, 2021;Chu and Carstensen, 2023), as well as in the case of employee relationship (Fingerman et al., 2008). At the workplace, employees will often have the tendency to perceive job actions and tasks in the same temporal key note, focusing on the outcome with regard to present or the future, in association with various variables such as impact, expectations, value, costs or degree of engagement. ...

Rethinking the measurement of time horizons in the context of socioemotional selectivity theory

International Psychogeriatrics

... As a prominent theoretical basis, Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) posits that older individuals prioritize their core relationships, adopting strategies to minimize engagement with negative emotional triggers and reduce negative social interactions (Carstensen et al., 1999;English & Carstensen, 2016;Fung & Carstensen, ATTACHMENT AND EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY 11 2004;Lang, 2001). This developmental shift is reflected in how older couples manage conflict, as they are more likely to engage in withdrawal or avoidant behaviors during conflicts (Holley et al., 2013). ...

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory
  • Citing Chapter
  • February 2016

... When time horizons are constrained, goals that are realized in the short term are valued over goals that pay off in the longer term. Note that goal priorities change in similar ways when college students approach graduation (Fredrickson, 1995), before geographical moves (Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990), during events that prime mortality, such as pandemics (Fung & Carstensen, 2006;Jiang & Carstensen, 2023), and when workers approach the end of their careers (Shavit et al., 2023). The role of time horizons in goal selection is independent of the loss of capacity. ...

COVID-19 reduced age differences in social motivation
Frontiers in Psychology

... To this point, there is a causality dilemma of continue working to stay healthy and well; and being healthy and well to continue working. Socio-emotional selectivity theory (SEST) (Carstensen & Reynolds, 2023) offers some explanations of the dilemma, as SEST highlights the changes in goal priorities as the behavioral consequences of aging. SEST describes aging predominantly in terms of subjective perceptions of (remaining) time rather than changing biological or contextual resources. ...

Age differences in preferences through the lens of socioemotional selectivity theory
  • Citing Article
  • December 2022

The Journal of the Economics of Ageing

... When time horizons are constrained, goals that are realized in the short term are valued over goals that pay off in the longer term. Note that goal priorities change in similar ways when college students approach graduation (Fredrickson, 1995), before geographical moves (Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990), during events that prime mortality, such as pandemics (Fung & Carstensen, 2006;Jiang & Carstensen, 2023), and when workers approach the end of their careers (Shavit et al., 2023). The role of time horizons in goal selection is independent of the loss of capacity. ...

Age and Time Horizons Are Associated With Preferences for Helping Colleagues

Work Aging and Retirement