Emotional Experience in Everyday Life Across the Adult Life Span

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 em...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 2000-10, Vol.79 (4), p.644-655
Main Authors: Carstensen, Laura L, Pasupathi, Monisha, Mayr, Ulrich, Nesselroade, John R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Adults
Affect
Affectivity. Emotion
Age
Age difference
Age Differences
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Biological and medical sciences
Developmental psychology
Emotional Development
Emotional States
Emotions
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Human behaviour
Humans
Life Experiences
Male
Middle Aged
Personality
Personality. Affectivity
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social cognition
Social psychology
Time Perspective
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.79.4.644