Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Psychol Aging. 2013 Mar;28(1):148-59. doi: 10.1037/a0030047. Epub 2012 Oct 15.
Emotional stability, as indicated by low affect variability and low affective reactivity to daily events, for example, tends to increase across the adult life span. This study investigated a contextual explanation for such age differences, relating affect variability and affective reactivity to age-group-specific life contexts. A sample of 101 younger and 103 older adults reported daily stressors and negative affect across 100 days. Compared with younger adults, older adults (a) experienced fewer stressors overall, (b) had less heterogeneous stressor profiles, and (c) reported that stressors had less impact on daily routines. As expected, these contextual factors were relevant for interindividual differences in emotional stability. Multiple regression analyses revealed that reduced affect variability and affective reactivity in older adults were associated with these age-group specific life contexts. Moreover, matching younger and older adults on the contextual factors to explore the effects of context on age-group differences further provided support for the (partially) contextual explanation of age differences in emotional stability. Matched subgroups of younger and older adults that were comparable on contextual variables were identified. Affective variability, but not affective reactivity, was more similar in the matched subsamples than in the total samples of younger and older adults. We conclude that contexts in which affective experiences emerge require more attention when aiming to explain interindividual and age group differences in emotional stability. Moreover, future studies need to disentangle the extent to which contexts interact with active self-regulatory processes to shape affective experiences across adulthood.
情绪稳定性，例如，表现为低情感变异性和对日常事件的低情感反应，往往会随着成年期的发展而增加。本研究探讨了一种与年龄相关的情境解释，将情感变异性和情感反应与特定年龄组的生活情境联系起来。一项由 101 名年轻组和 103 名老年组组成的样本在 100 天内报告了日常压力源和负性情绪。与年轻成年人相比，老年成年人(a)总体上经历的压力源较少，(b)压力源特征的异质性较小，以及(c)报告压力源对日常生活的影响较小。正如预期的那样，这些情境因素与情绪稳定性的个体间差异有关。多元回归分析表明，老年个体情感变异性和情感反应的降低与这些特定年龄组的生活情境有关。此外，通过匹配年轻和老年成年人的情境因素来探索情境对年龄组差异的影响，进一步为情绪稳定性的年龄差异的（部分）情境解释提供了支持。确定了在情境变量上可与年轻和老年成年人相匹配的亚组。与年轻和老年成年人的总样本相比，匹配亚组的情感变异性更为相似，而情感反应则不那么相似。我们得出的结论是，在解释情绪稳定性的个体间和年龄组差异时，需要更加关注情感体验出现的情境。此外，未来的研究需要厘清情境与主动自我调节过程相互作用的程度，以塑造成年期的情感体验。
