Emotion, Physiology, and Expression in Old Age

Emotion-specific autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity was studied in 20 elderly people (age 71-83 years, M = 77) who followed muscle-by-muscle instructions for constructing facial prototypes of emotional expressions and relived past emotional experiences. Results indicated that (a) patterns of em...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 1991-03, Vol.6 (1), p.28-35
Main Authors: Levenson, Robert W, Carstensen, Laura L, Friesen, Wallace V, Ekman, Paul
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult. Elderly
Aged - psychology
Aged, 80 and over
Arousal - physiology
Autonomic Nervous System
Autonomic Nervous System - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Developmental psychology
Emotions
Emotions - physiology
Facial Expression
Facial Expressions
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gender Identity
Human
Humans
Male
Mental Recall - physiology
Older Adulthood
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychophysiology
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Summary:Emotion-specific autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity was studied in 20 elderly people (age 71-83 years, M = 77) who followed muscle-by-muscle instructions for constructing facial prototypes of emotional expressions and relived past emotional experiences. Results indicated that (a) patterns of emotion-specific ANS activity produced by these tasks closely resembled those found in other studies with younger Ss, (b) the magnitude of change in ANS measures was smaller in older than in younger Ss, (c) patterns of emotion-specific ANS activity showed generality across the 2 modes of elicitation, (d) emotion self-reports and spontaneous production of emotional facial expressions that occurred during relived emotional memories were comparable with those found in younger Ss, (e) elderly men and women did not differ in emotional physiology or facial expression, and (f) elderly women reported experiencing more intense emotions when reliving emotional memories than did elderly men.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.6.1.28