Age Differences in Emotion Regulation During Ongoing Affective Life: A Naturalistic Experience Sampling Study

A well-documented finding in aging and emotion research is that older adults reliably report less negative and, often, more positive affect than younger adults. How older people accomplish this is, however, an open question. We propose that this age effect is the result of differential use of emotion regulation strategies, especially when affective states call for them. We assessed a wide range of emotion regulation strategies over 2 months of daily life (60 consecutive days, N = 9,089 observations). Sample was composed of N = 153 participants (52% female; 62.09% White, 19.61% Black or African American, 9.80% Asian,1.96% Hispanic or Latino, 1.31% Native American, and 5.23% were missing cases) ranging in age from 18 to 84 years, (M = 45, SD = 20.02). We compare three age groups: young (n = 50, college students, median age of 21 years), middle aged (n = 52, university graduates, median age 44 years), and older (n = 51, university graduates, median age of 68 years). Using mixed model analyses of mood regulation strategy use, we find a main effect for age, negative affect (NA), and an interaction between NA and age, meaning that, in general, older participants' use of emotion regulation strategy was higher with negative affect than for younger participants. In summary, older participants used a wider variety of emotion regulation strategies, and they used them most when their affective states called for them, compared to younger participants. Results are interpreted along the lines of an "older but wiser" perspective on emotional well-being and aging.