Research Overview
In the broadest sense, our research focuses on the social, emotional, and cognitive processes that people use to adapt to life circumstances as they age. Our research focuses specifically on motivation and emotional functioning. We study the ways in which motivation changes developmentally and how this relates to emotional processing and emotional regulation.
Research from our laboratory has contributed to a growing literature suggesting that the emotion system "works" well even in very old age, and that the ability to experience emotions deeply and regulate them effectively may even improve with age.
Our empirical approach utilizes diverse methodologies ranging from laboratory experiments focusing on the underlying processes involved in emotion regulation to field studies examining aspects of emotional functioning in day-to-day life.
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST)
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) is grounded in the uniquely human ability to monitor time (Carstensen, 1993, 2006; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). According to SST, a core constellation of goals operates throughout adulthood, including basic goals associated with attachment and control as well as goals associated with instrumental needs and emotional gratification. The key postulate of SST is that the relative importance of goals within this constellation changes as a function of future time horizons. Because chronological age is inversely associated with actual and perceived time left in life, systematic age differences emerge in preferred goals. Importantly, according to SST, age differences in goal hierarchies reflect perceived future time more than time since birth (viz., chronological age). When the future is perceived as long and nebulous, as it typically is in youth, future-oriented goals related to gathering information and expanding horizons are prioritized over emotional gratification. When time horizons are constrained, present-oriented goals related to emotional satisfaction and meaning are prioritized over goals associated with long-term rewards.
All told, the body of research about social and emotional aging suggests that, relative to younger people, older people enjoy relatively stable and positive emotional experience in daily life, focus on positive more than negative information, and prioritize meaningful activities over activities related to individual achievement and exploration. Together, these qualities represent a significant source of social capital.
Positivity Effect
In tests of SST, we found evidence that older people are more likely to remember emotionally meaningful stimuli as compared to stimuli about learning and exploration. In follow-up studies, we identified what is now called the “positivity effect” in cognitive processing. The effect is defined as a relative preference among older people for positive over negative stimuli when compared to younger adults. Many studies now suggest that older adults attend to and remember positive information better than negative information. Scores of studies from multiple laboratories, utilizing a wide variety of methodological approaches, have revealed this pattern (Mather et al., 2004; Mikels, Larkin, Reuter-Lorenz, & Carstensen, 2005; Ready, Weinberger, & Jones, 2007; Shamaskin, Mikels, & Reed, 2010; Isaacowitz, Wadlinger, Goren, & Wilson, 2006; Mather & Carstensen, 2003). A meta-analysis published in 2014 based on 100 studies concluded that the positivity effect is reliable (Reed, Chan &, Mikels 2014). Attending to and remembering what’s positive more than what’s negative presumably benefits emotional experience. Theoretically, this reflects the deployment of cognitive resources in support of goal-directed behavior.
Future Time Perspective (FTP) Scale
The Future Time Perspective (FTP) scale, developed by Laura Carstensen and Frieder Lang, can be administered on paper or online.
The FTP scale includes ten items answered by indicating agreement on a 7-point Likert-type scale (from 1= very untrue, to 7 = very true). The last three items of the Future Time Perspective scale (#s 8-10) are reverse coded. When scoring the measure, researchers calculate the participant’s mean scores.
There are no defined cutoffs for interpreting FTP scores. Prior research shows a linear relationship between chronological age and time horizons. The strength of the relationship varies as a function of the age range in the sample; nearly always, the relationship is positive high scores indicative of long time horizons.
Stanford Emotional Experience Study
The Stanford Emotional Experience Study is a longitudinal experience sampling study that examines emotional experience in daily life in sample of adults spanning the adult age range. Participants reported the extent to which they experienced multiple emotions at five randomly selected times each day for a one-week period. Using a measurement burst design, this one-week sampling procedure was repeated five and then ten years later. At each wave, participants lost to death or attrition were replaced with new participants who were carefully matched on demographic characteristics to lost participants, and a new recent cohort was recruited to replace participants who had “aged out” of the youngest end of the distribution. In addition to the main assessments, a small subset of participants who had been in all three waves of the study took part in an intensive laboratory assessment that included DNA analysis, cortisol sampling, and fMRI.
Core findings indicate that aging is associated with increasing positive emotional well-being, greater emotional stability, and more emotional complexity. These findings remain robust after accounting for other variables that may be related to emotional experience (e.g., personality, verbal fluency, physical health, and demographic variables). Furthermore, emotional experience predicts mortality: controlling for age, sex, and ethnicity, individuals who experienced relatively more positive than negative emotions in everyday life were more likely to have survived over the longitudinal period.
We also found that mixed emotional experience is positively related to physical health, and that an increase of mixed emotions over time was linked to less health decline over time. Additionally, a main effect of the genetic polymorphism COMT was observed in the expected direction (Met carriers experience more negative emotion than Val carriers), but the relationship diminished with age, suggesting that age advantages in emotional functioning occur even among those genetically predisposed to negative affective experiences.
Featured publication: Emotional experience improves with age: Evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling