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AROUSAL OR RELEVANCE? APPLYING A DISCRETE EMOTION PERSPECTIVE TO AGING AND AFFECT REGULATION

Lautzenhiser, Sara E
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560587022336637

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
While research in the psychology of human aging suggests that older adults are quite adept at managing negative affect, emotion regulation efficacy may depend on the discrete emotion elicited. For instance, prior research suggests older adults are more effective at dealing with emotional states that are more age-relevant/useful and lower in intensity (i.e., sadness) relative to less relevant/useful or more intense (i.e., anger). The goal of the present study was to probe this discrete emotions perspective further by addressing the relevance/intensity distinction within a broader set of negative affective states (i.e., fear and disgust, along with anger and sadness). Results revealed that participants reported relatively high levels of the intended emotion for each video, while also demonstrating significant affective recovery after the attentional refocusing task. Age differences in sadness and anger reactivity were observed with older adults reporting higher subjective reactivity relative to younger adults, with comparable recovery levels. Results from the physiological analyses did not reveal significant age differences in reactivity and recovery profiles. We discuss how the present results, at least in terms of participants’ subjective emotional experiences, suggest potential expansions to the discrete emotions approach for affective processing and regulation throughout the adult lifespan.
Eric Allard (Advisor)
Robert Hurley (Committee Member)
Conor McLennan (Committee Member)
Andrew Slifkin (Committee Member)
Aging; Psychology
Aging; Emotion; Emotion Regulation; Discrete Emotion Approach; SAVI; Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Lautzenhiser, S. E. (2019). AROUSAL OR RELEVANCE? APPLYING A DISCRETE EMOTION PERSPECTIVE TO AGING AND AFFECT REGULATION [Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560587022336637

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lautzenhiser, Sara. AROUSAL OR RELEVANCE? APPLYING A DISCRETE EMOTION PERSPECTIVE TO AGING AND AFFECT REGULATION. 2019. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560587022336637.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lautzenhiser, Sara. "AROUSAL OR RELEVANCE? APPLYING A DISCRETE EMOTION PERSPECTIVE TO AGING AND AFFECT REGULATION." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560587022336637

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

csu1560587022336637
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© 2019, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License AROUSAL OR RELEVANCE? APPLYING A DISCRETE EMOTION PERSPECTIVE TO AGING AND AFFECT REGULATION by Sara E Lautzenhiser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Cleveland State University and OhioLINK.