Age-related differences in instructed positive reappraisal and mindful attention
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Age-related differences in instructed positive reappraisal and mindful attention Brooke Brady 1,2
&
Craig Gonsalvez 1 & Ian I. Kneebone 3 & Ella Wufong 1 & Phoebe E. Bailey 1
Accepted: 30 June 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Objectives The present study assessed age-related differences in the success of instructed mindful attention and positive reappraisal, as well as trait affect and emotion regulation. Methods Young and older adults were instructed to regulate their emotions while viewing frightening and amusing films using three separate instructions (just watch, positive reappraisal, or mindful attention). Participants rated the strength of their experience of the target emotion (fear or amusement) and success in following the instruction to regulate. Electrodermal activity was recorded continuously, and facial electromyography measured positive and negative facial expression. Trait measures of affect and emotion regulation were also administered. Results Electrodermal activity provided strong evidence that young adults successfully regulate fear using mindful attention and positive reappraisal relative to a just watch condition. Older adults’ electrodermal activity is was constant across conditions, and lower than young adults’ in the just watch condition, suggesting general hyporeactivity to fear. Subjective data suggest that young, but not older, adults successfully downregulate amusement using mindful attention. Conclusion These findings provide some evidence for emotion regulation benefits in young relative to older age. However, these youthful benefits may reflect reduced initial reactivity among older adults. Keywords Emotion regulation . Aging . Positive reappraisal . Mindful attention . Fear
Physical and cognitive decline in older age may be offset by improved emotional health, including strengths in emotion regulation (Charles and Carstensen 2007). According to Gross’ (1989) process model, emotion can be regulated at five sequential stages in the emotion generative process. The regulation strategies employed at each stage include situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation. Cognitive reappraisal is one form of Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01523-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Brooke Brady [email protected] 1
School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag, Sydney, NSW2751, Australia
2
Neuroscience Research Australia, Sydney, Australia
3
Discipline of Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
cognitive change and is the most widely studied regulation strategy among older adults (for a review and meta-analysis, see Brady et al. 2018). It involves “cognitively transforming the situation so as to alter its emotional impact” (Gross 1998, p. 284).
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