Scheibe Susanne, Blanchard-Fields Fredda
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Psychol Aging. 2009 Mar;24(1):217-23. doi: 10.1037/a0013807.
The authors examined whether instructions to regulate emotions after a disgust-inducing film clip created an equally costly cognitive load across adulthood. Young and older adults across all instructional conditions initially demonstrated increased working memory performance after mood induction, typical of practice effects. Age-group differences emerged at the 2nd postinduction trial. When instructed to down-regulate disgust feelings, older adults' performance continually increased, whereas young adults' performance dropped. Instructions to maintain disgust did not affect working memory performance. Consistent with claims that older adults are more effective at regulating emotions, findings indicate that intentional down-regulation of negative emotions may be less costly in older age.
作者们研究了在观看一段引发厌恶情绪的电影片段后进行情绪调节的指示是否会在整个成年期造成同样高昂的认知负荷。在所有指示条件下，年轻人和老年人在情绪诱导后最初都表现出工作记忆表现的提高，这是练习效应的典型表现。年龄组差异在诱导后的第二次试验中出现。当被指示下调厌恶情绪时，老年人的表现持续提高，而年轻人的表现则下降。保持厌恶情绪的指示并未影响工作记忆表现。与老年人在调节情绪方面更有效的说法一致，研究结果表明，有意下调负面情绪在老年时可能成本更低。
