Lecture 5: Emotion regulation Flashcards
Older adults have an age advantage in emotions…..
Reporting more positive and less negative emotional experience than do younger people
What is the main research question of the paper?
Do age advantages in emotional experience occur under conditions of prolonged unavoidable stress like COVID-19
What did study 1 look at?
Examined the robustness of age advantages in emotions in a US sample during covid-19.
What was the method of the first study?
The aim was to measure emotions and well-being acorss the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were a different number of participants per country, the only data-exclusion criterion was if they provided the same answers to 11 or more consecutive items. 10 positive emotions of admiration, calm, compassion, determination, moved, gratitude, hope, love relief and pleasure and 10 negative emotions of anger anxiety boredom, loneliness etc. Variables like education level, employment status, Big 5 personality traits, gender, vulnerability and SES were controlled for.
What did results find from study 1?
- age was not found to correlate with perceived vulnerability
- age positively predicted positive emotional experience and negatively predicted negative emotional experience with all variables being controlled
- the effects for negative emotions were larger than for positive ones
- these findings were consistent across ages
Strength and vulnerability integration model
Prolonged stress and limit older adults’ capacity to effectively regulate their negative emotions by avoiding aversive events so the age-related advantages would decrease
What was the method of the second study?
- an existing data set was used of participants who completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule during the first pandemic wave
- Mean scores were calculated for each emotion
- Gender, Big Five and self-reported health were controlled
What did results find?
- Level of negative emotions was significantly higher during the pandemic than before the pandemic, and was highest this year
- unclear the level of positive emotions during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic years
- Age found to positively correlated with positive emotions and negatively correlated with negative emotions
- The negative relationship between age and negative was weaker during the pandemic
What is the conclusion of this study?
- Older adults might be able to use some strategies to reduce sustained stress
- some strategies that help older people manage their emotions which is avoidance and cannot be done with the pandemic
What is the method of study 1?
Emotional experiences were measured across 51 countries asking about the 20 emotions mentioned above. Wellbeing was also assessed with a questionnaire. Several variables were controlled: age, gender, education, SES, COVID-19 related measured, global indices and cultural values. Well being made up of wellness, resilience, health and distress.
What did results find from study 1?
- on average, people experienced more positive emotions than negative emotions daily
- Calm, hope, determination and love were positively associate with wellness, resilience and health
- Calm and hope were negatively associated with distress
- Key negative emotions relate to wellbeing were anxiety, frustration, loneliness, regret and sadness all negatively associated with wellness and health. Positively associated with distress
- regret, sadness and fear were negatively associated with resilience
- women, younger individuals and with lower education and SES had poorer wellbeing during pandemic
-countries with more stringent measures to COVID-19 was linked to higher resilience and less distress - consistency of these results were found across countries
What was the method of study 2?
Same materials used but instead two nationally representative samples were used, one from the UK and the other from the US.
What did the results find from study 2?
- calm and determination positively predicted wellness resilience and health, hope positively predicted wellness and resilience
- anxiety, loneliness and sadness negatively predicted wellness, resilience and health
- calm and hope negatively and anxiety, loneliness and hope positively predicted distress
- but no evidence of experiences of love or frustration for wellbeing in these sample
- regret predicted all 4 wellbeing outcomes
- some gender difference as men had lower distress and higher resilience. Higher SES= improved wellbeing
Study 3 aim
To measure whether the emotional experiences precede the change in wellbeing, which was tested using data from a 30 day diary study
Study 3 method
Participants first received a questionnaire about stable traits and then had the diary study in which they answered a daily short questionnaire before going to bed. They were asked about the intensity of their emotional experiences. After this, they answered person-level traits and the same questionnaire as in the first stage.
