OBJECTIVES:Exchanges of interpersonal emotion regulation support between romantic couples may be especially important in older adulthood, a time when individuals tend to prioritize close relationships and emotional well-being. We examine the effects of support exchange perceptions in an adult lifespan sample of married couples. METHODS:In the present study, 134 married couples (N = 268) aged 23-85 (Mage = 52.80, SD = 18.27) completed a 9-day daily diary procedure in which they reported current emotions, relationship satisfaction, and the extent to which they provided support to and received support from their partner in terms of managing emotions each day. Using actor-partner interdependence modeling and dyadic response surface analyses, we examined the effects of receiving and providing support on daily relationship satisfaction and emotional well-being, with age as a moderator. RESULTS:At between-person and within-person levels, providing and receiving support were generally associated with higher end-of-day relationship satisfaction and positive affect, although some associations varied by actor and partner reports. Across analyses, compared to younger adults, the well-being of older adults was more strongly linked to their partner's reported interpersonal emotion regulation. In some cases, between-person level alignment in perceptions was more strongly associated with end-of-day negative affect and positive affect among older couples than younger couples, as indicated by response surface analyses. DISCUSSION:Findings suggest that both receiving and providing interpersonal emotion regulation support are central to couples' well-being across the lifespan. This study provides preliminary evidence that partner perceptions of support exchanges may become increasingly important for well-being throughout adulthood.

Situational and individual differences shape how and why people regulate emotions, but whether emotion regulation is initiated remains understudied. We hypothesize that, for example, less familiar situations might be associated with more regulation initiation, and people who believe emotions are controllable initiate regulation more frequently. Using experience sampling ( N = 216; 7x/14 days), we found that participants initiated regulation 60% of the time over the past 2 hr. As predicted, people initiated regulation in less familiar, less pleasant contexts, and with more dominant, less warm social partners. Unexpectedly, individuals who believe emotions are uncontrollable were more likely to initiate regulation, even after accounting for affect. These findings highlight that while attention has mostly focused on strategy selection or efficacy, meaningful situational and individual differences also exist at the emotion regulation initiation stage when individuals determine whether to expend regulatory resources to maintain well-being.

People vary in how their emotional experiences change over time, so dynamical systems theory has been suggested to understand daily emotion regulation processes. However, it is not clear whether dynamic changes in emotions over time, such as return to a person-specific affective baseline, reflect successful engagement in goal-directed emotion regulation or simply automatic fluctuations of a self-regulating system. In two experience sampling studies (5x/day for 21 days) with total N=450 young adult participants, we use person-specific change-as-outcome models, implemented through continuous-time modeling, to investigate dynamic changes in emotions while considering momentary goals to up or downregulate positive and negative affect. We show that people differ from each other in their attractor location (i.e., affective baseline) and their attractor strength (i.e., how quickly they return to their affective baseline) when not accounting for goals. We also show that people vary in whether their emotion systems respond to emotion regulation goals, highlighting that for about 65% of people, their emotions do not change based on their regulation goals. However, we show that individual differences in well-being and regulation strategy use are related to differences in simple and goal-directed changes in emotions. This highlights that emotion regulation success indicated by motivated changes in daily emotions is rare, but individual differences in these motivated changes in addition to simple emotion dynamics provide relevant insight into people’s emotional lives. This work highlights the importance of differentiating goal-independent fluctuations of dynamic affective systems from conscious emotion regulation in daily life.

Laboratory experiments and daily life approaches for examining emotion regulation (ER) success each have their advantages. The former allows researchers to isolate causal mechanisms and the latter provides an externally valid way to understand how effective people are at managing emotions. However, these methodologies sometimes find different patterns. We theorize that the degree to which perceived ER success in the laboratory and in daily life are related depends on features of the regulation context (e.g., in situations where individuals hold greater pro-hedonic motives) and characteristics of the regulator (e.g., age). In the present study, 211 adults (n = 66 younger adults; n = 87 cognitively normal [CN] older adults; n = 58 older adults with mild cognitive impairment [MCI]) completed a lab-based paradigm of ER and experience sampling of ER in daily contexts (7 × for 9 days). Overall, ER success in the laboratory had minimal associations with ER success in daily life. The associations between ER success in the laboratory and in daily life did not vary based on daily pro-hedonic motive or group membership. Pro-hedonic ER motivation was linked to less daily ER success. There were age-related advantages in daily ER success, even among older adults with MCI. Altogether, our findings suggest that laboratory assessments may capture distinct aspects of ER ability compared to daily life assessments. More work is needed to test the robustness of this effect and consider other factors that may strengthen or weaken the connection between findings in the laboratory and in daily life.

Older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have relatively poor emotional well-being, but little is known about their emotion regulation (ER) processes. In the present study, we investigate whether individuals of varying age and cognitive status might benefit emotionally from specific ER strategy selection instructions. Young adults (aged 21-34, n = 66), cognitively normal older adults (CN; aged 70-84, n = 90), and older adults with MCI (aged 70-84, n = 60) completed a laboratory ER task involving high-arousal negative film clips. They were instructed to (a) regulate using any ER strategy and then (b) regulate using a specific ER strategy, depending on the randomly assigned condition: cognitive distraction or detached reappraisal. Participants were video recorded while viewing the film clips and reported on their strategy use, experience of emotion, and perceived ER success. We examined three indicators of ER success: emotional experience, emotional expression, and perceived ER success. Generally, older adults with MCI did not differ greatly from young adults and CN older adults in how successfully they regulated negative emotions in this controlled context. Older adults with MCI expressed less of the target emotion being regulated when instructed to use a specific strategy compared to when instructed to spontaneously select any strategy. Additionally, older adults with MCI demonstrated benefits associated with distraction instructions over reappraisal instructions in terms of reduced experience of the target emotion and greater perceived success. Findings partially support the idea that cognitively impaired older adults may benefit from instructional support, especially encouragement to use attentional deployment strategies, when regulating high-arousal negative emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite natural decline in physical and cognitive health, older adults experience greater emotional well-being through prioritization and selective allocation of resources towards socioemotional goals. As such, older adults are theorized to have greater emotion regulation (ER) abilities. Empirical findings, however, are mixed regarding age-related strengths in ER. Laboratory-based assessments typically elicit higher-arousal negative affect, a context that older adults experience less of in daily life and may require more cognitive effort. Thus, ER success assessed in these types of experimental paradigms may not be reflective ER success as assessed in daily life for older adults with or without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) compared to younger adults. 211 adults (n = 66 younger adults; n = 87 cognitively normal [CN] older adults; n = 58 older adults with mild cognitive impairment [MCI]) completed a lab-based paradigm of ER and ecological momentary assessments of ER (7x for 9 days). Overall, ER success in the laboratory was minimally associated with ER success in daily life across all three groups. There were, however, age-related advantages in daily ER success, even among older adults with MCI. Our findings suggest that laboratory assessments may capture distinct aspects of ER ability compared to daily life assessments. Future work should test modifications to lab-based assessments to better capture how older adults engage in ER in daily life and consider other factors that may strengthen or weaken the connection between laboratory and in daily life.

In this article, we take an in-depth look at different ways of assessing emotions in daily life through experience sampling, ranging from more generalizable, nomothetic approaches (e.g., asking all participants to rate their degree of sadness) to more specialized, idiographic approaches (e.g., asking participants to describe their emotions in their own words). We highlight the benefits of these procedures and discuss ways of combining nomothetic and idiographic approaches to measuring emotions in daily life. We argue that integrative approaches can be beneficial for gaining both generalizable insights into the antecedents and consequences of emotions across individuals as well as for predicting and intervening on person-specific emotional experiences. We then discuss implications for clinical interventions and treatments, sensitivity to cultural variations in emotion, as well as practical considerations for incorporating nomothetic and idiographic approaches into experience sampling surveys. We also highlight future research questions that can be addressed when using a combined nomothetic and idiographic approach to measuring emotions.

OBJECTIVES:Prior work has demonstrated age-related increases in emotional well-being and emotional stability. However, little is known about the specific patterns of emotion across daily situations for older adults experiencing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) compared with cognitively normal (CN) older adults and their younger counterparts. METHODS:Young adults (aged 21-34, n = 70), CN older adults (aged 70-83, n = 89), and older adults with MCI (aged 70-84; n = 60) completed an experience sampling procedure (7×/day for 9 days) reporting their current experience of 7 negative emotions and 7 positive emotions. We computed indices of mean-level, intensity, frequency, inertia, and instability. RESULTS:Compared with young adults, older adults (both CN and with MCI) had lower mean-level and frequency of negative emotion, coupled with higher mean-level and intensity of positive emotion. Older adults with MCI and younger adults had a higher likelihood of negative emotion instability compared with CN older adults. Young adults had higher inertia of positive emotion compared with older adults with MCI. Regarding discrete emotions, older adults with MCI had more intense nervousness, higher boredom inertia, and lower frequency of happiness and excitement compared with CN older adults. DISCUSSION:Although older adults with MCI and CN older adults show similar emotion profiles at a broad level, they differ in their temporal dynamics and experience of certain emotions. MCI in old age may be accompanied by more negative emotion instability and less positive emotion inertia, as well as differences in specific emotions representative of (lack of) engagement.

OBJECTIVES:Prominent theories of adult development suggest individuals increasingly prioritize emotional goals and social relationships as they age. Accordingly, older adults are expected to invest more in maintaining their emotional well-being compared with younger adults. Prior work suggests older adults may accomplish this goal by structuring their lives in ways that reduce the need to actively manage unwanted emotion. We tested the hypotheses that (a) older adults regulate their emotions less often in daily life compared with younger adults, and (b) when emotion regulation occurs, older adults are more motivated than younger adults by prohedonic and social concerns. METHOD:Using experience sampling (7x/day for 9 days), we assessed emotion regulation frequency and motives in younger adults (n = 75), cognitively normal older adults (n = 93), and older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; n = 63). RESULTS:Emotion regulation was less frequent for older adults with MCI (16%) and without MCI (18%) compared with younger adults (43%), even when controlling for emotional experience. However, few differences in emotion regulation motives emerged and they were not robust to controlling for age group differences in emotion. DISCUSSION:These findings extend previous work on emotion regulation in aging, which largely has focused on strategies, by documenting age differences in how often, but not why, people regulate. Future work is needed to explore how age-related differences in life contexts might result in less need for emotion regulation in older adults. Conserving effort directed toward emotion regulation could be particularly beneficial among older adults with more limited cognitive resources.

Psychological well-being tends to increase throughout adulthood, but age-related differences in emotion dynamics have been less explored. By examining patterns of emotion dynamics across age, we can gain deeper insight into potential areas where age-related emotional advantages do and do not exist. In the present study, an adult lifespan sample (N = 290, aged 25–85) completed an experience sampling protocol in which they reported their current emotional experiences six times a day for ten days. We examined age as a predictor of composites of mean-level, intensity, frequency, instability, and inertia of positive emotions (PA: excited, enthusiastic, happy, grateful, peaceful, relaxed) and negative emotions (NA: stressed, nervous, angry, disgusted, sad, sluggish, bored), as well as discrete emotions. Age predicted lower mean-level, intensity, and frequency of NA and this pattern generally replicated across discrete negative emotions. Age was not associated with mean-level or intensity of PA, but it predicted higher PA frequency. Regarding discrete positive emotions, age predicted higher mean-level happiness, higher mean-level and intensity of peacefulness and relaxation, and lower intensity of excitement. Age predicted less inertia of PA, peacefulness, and relaxation (but not NA) and less instability of both NA and PA. This work highlights the value of considering multiple indices of emotion dynamics in age-diverse samples. While older adults demonstrated lower levels of NA, their NA carried over from one time point to the next similarly to young adults. On the other hand, PA was more frequently experienced by older adults but more inert for young adults.

One way older adults may be able to maintain emotional well-being despite declining in cognitive ability is through leveraging social resources for intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation. Additionally, given their increased life experience, older adults might also be particularly well-suited to regulate the emotions of others. To examine age difference in use and effectiveness of intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation, community adults (N = 290, aged 25-85 years) were prompted 6x/day for 10 days to report their emotional experience, use of intrinsic emotion regulation strategies (including capitalization, social sharing, co-reappraisal, and reminiscing), and interaction partner age. Older age was associated with being less likely to engage in social sharing of negative emotions, and this effect was stable when controlling for negative emotion experience. Otherwise, there were no age differences in how often or how effectively people use intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation. In terms of interaction partner age, older partner age was only associated with greater likelihood of using co-reappraisal and higher reports of negative emotion after social sharing. In summary, there was no strong evidence for the idea that interpersonal emotion regulation becomes more (or less) common or effective with age. However, though people may be less likely to share negative emotions and be seen as less effective partners for sharing these emotions later in life, older adults are preferable social partners for co-reappraisal potentially due to their life experience. Future work should explore motivational (i.e., attitudes toward negative emotions) and cultural (i.e., perceptions of roles and emotional abilities) mechanisms.

People experience momentary fluctuations in how much they differentiate between emotions and how clear they are about what they are feeling. To better understand situational predictors of shifts in emotion differentiation and emotional clarity, we investigated whether individuals are more differentiated and clearer about their emotions in social situations (versus alone) given that emotions fulfill important social functions. We tested if these within-person associations varied depending on socially relevant individual differences, including age, extraversion, and social connectedness. We also examined whether people are more differentiated and clearer in situations that have previously been processed (i.e., familiar situations) and if this effect was stronger for older (versus younger) adults. Community adults (N = 290, aged 25 to 85 years) completed measures of extraversion and social connectedness and then were randomly prompted six times a day for ten days to report on their current emotional experience and situation. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, social context was associated with less positive emotion differentiation and not associated with emotional clarity; these within-person associations did not differ by age, extraversion, or social connectedness. Individuals experienced more differentiated positive emotions and higher emotional clarity than usual when they were in more (versus less) familiar situations. Familiarity was especially predictive of higher positive emotion differentiation among relatively older (versus younger) adults. These findings suggest positive emotion differentiation, particularly in familiar situations could be a way in which the quality of one’s emotional experience changes with age.

Well-being is a multi-faceted construct, comprised of conceptualy distinct affective experiences, cognitive evaluations, and social processes. The current research investigates the extent to which these conceptually distinct well-being components are related to one another between and within individuals, as well as whether and how individuals differ from one another in the interrelations among their well-being experiences. With a community sample that reflects the diversity of St. Louis (N=400), we will assess trait and state experiences of well-being (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction, sense of purpose, psychological richness, social connectedness, self-esteem) and Big Five personality domains (i.e., openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism). After an initial baseline questionnaire, participants will complete 9 experience sampling surveys per day for 14 consecutive days (126 observations per person). In Aim 1a, we will evaluate associations among well-being components at three levels: between- person associations among trait measures, between-person associations among aggregated state measures, and within-person associations among fluctuations in state measures. In Aim 1b, we will use group iterative multiple model estimation (GIMME) to investigate how different well- being components covary within individuals concurrently and prospectively, and whether these pathways are consistent across people (i.e., nomothetic) or if they differ between people (i.e., idiographic). In Aim 2a and 2b, we will apply the same methods to understand how Big Five personality domains relate to each well-being component. Findings will help establish the interrelations among well-being components, the consistency of state-level associations across people, and the role the Big Five personality domains play in promoting well-being.

Prominent theories of adult development suggest that individuals increasingly prioritize emotional goals and social relationships as they grow older. Accordingly, older adults are expected to invest more in maintaining their emotional well-being compared to younger adults. Prior work suggests that older adults may accomplish this goal by structuring their lives in ways that reduce the need to manage unwanted emotion. We tested the hypotheses that (1) older adults regulate their emotions less often in daily life compared to younger adults, and (2) when emotion regulation occurs, older adults are relatively more motivated by pro-hedonic and social concerns. Using experience sampling (7x/day for 9 days), we assessed whether emotion regulation frequency and motives differ between younger adults (N = 70), cognitively normal older adults (N = 88), and older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; N = 60). We found that older adults with and without MCI regulated their emotions less frequently than younger adults, even when controlling for mean levels of positive and negative emotional experience. However, there were largely no group differences in emotion regulation motives (i.e., why people wanted to manage their emotions). Future work is needed to explore how age-related differences in life contexts might contribute to less need for emotion regulation in relatively older adults. Less frequent regulation could be beneficial in terms of helping older adults preserve their more limited cognitive resources. The findings regarding motives add to growing research on aging which suggest maintenance or similarity in many emotion regulation processes across adulthood.

Objectives The Strengths and Vulnerabilities Integration model () suggests older adults experience difficulty regulating emotions with high-arousal negative stimuli due to decreases in resources. We investigate relationships among age, physical and cognitive resources, emotional experience, and perceived emotion regulation (ER) needs. Methods Participants aged 25-85 (N = 290) completed assessments of cognitive ability and physical health. In an experience sampling procedure (6x per day for 10 days), participants reported their momentary emotion experience and perceived need to regulate their emotions. Results Regardless of arousal level, negative emotion was associated with higher ER need and positive emotion was associated with lower ER need. This pro-hedonic orientation was stronger among older adults and individuals with more cognitive resources. In contrast to predictions, older adults in poor physical health who experience high levels of high-arousal negative emotion on average reported lower ER need compared with younger adults in poor physical health. However, older adults with lower cognitive resources who experience high levels of high-arousal negative emotion on average reported higher ER need. Discussion Findings suggest that younger age and lower levels of cognitive ability are linked to less perceived need to regulate negative emotional states. Physical vulnerabilities also may dampen the perceived need for regulating high-arousal negative emotions, but only among older adults. Age-related shifts in resources and emotional goals may influence the likelihood that individuals are motivated to engage in ER, as well as the effectiveness of those efforts.

Academic Abstract This paper aims to motivate research on emotion regulation success in naturalistic settings. We define emotion regulation success as achieving one's emotion regulation goal and differentiate it from related concepts (i.e., maladaptive regulation and dysregulation). As goals vary across individuals and situations, it is insufficient to conceptualize emotion regulation success as maximizing positive affect and minimizing negative affect. Instead, emotion regulation success can be measured through novel approaches targeting the achievement of emotion regulation goals. In addition to utilizing novel data analytic tools (e.g., response surface analyses), future research can make use of informant reports and observing ambulatory behavior or physiology. Considering emotion regulation goals when measuring daily emotion regulation success has the potential to answer key questions about personality, development, and mental health. Public Abstract People differ in how they want to feel in daily situations (e.g., excited) and why they want to feel that way (e.g., to make others feel better), depending on factors such as culture or age. Although people manage their emotions to reach these goals, most research assessing emotion regulation success has not taken individual goals into account. When assessing if people successfully regulate their emotions, most research in daily life has been focused on whether people feel more positive or less negative. To help study emotion regulation success in a more thoughtful and inclusive way, we propose a new approach to conceptualizing emotion regulation success that incorporates individual differences in what motivates people to regulate and discuss future research directions and applications.

The emotional experiences of people with major depressive disorder (MDD) are characterized by emotional disturbances. We examined whether these patterns characterize people with MDD in remission. Participants included individuals who had experienced at least two major depressive episodes (remitted-MDD group; n = 80), had current MDD (current-MDD group; n = 48), or were control participants (n = 87). Participants reported their momentary affect five times per day for 14 days, from which we computed the mean (i.e., intensity), standard deviation (i.e., variability), and autocorrelation (i.e., inertia). Negative affect (NA) intensity and variability, but not inertia, differed between groups; the current-MDD group had the highest levels, the control group had the lowest, and the remitted-MDD group fell in between. Differences in NA variability held after accounting for mean NA. The only significant group difference for positive affect (PA) was that PA intensity was lower in the current-MDD group compared with the other two groups. Emotional disturbances of participants with remitted MDD appear limited to NA.