Department of Psychology, Concordia University.
Department of Psychology, University of Leipzig.
Psychol Aging. 2018 Mar;33(2):350-360. doi: 10.1037/pag0000229.
This longitudinal study examined the experience of sadness and anger in a sample of older adults. Based on the discrete emotion theory of affective aging, it was expected that sadness, but not anger, would increase in older adulthood over time. In addition, we hypothesized that inter- and intraindividual differences in low perceptions of control would be more strongly associated with sadness than anger. The 10-year study followed 187 community-dwelling older adults (M = 72.25, SD = 5.81). At each of six waves, participants' levels of sadness, anger, perceived control, and sociodemographic characteristics were assessed. Hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated that sadness, but not anger, linearly increased over time. These increases in sadness were evident only among older adults who reported low (but not high) levels of perceived control across the study period, and who experienced longitudinal declines (but not increases) in perceived control. In addition, nonlinear within-person reductions in perceived control predicted participants' sadness in the entire sample, but were associated with anger only in early, and not in advanced, old age. These findings support the discrete emotion theory of affective aging by documenting the distinctiveness of older adults' anger and sadness. These two negative emotions differ in terms of both age-related changes and predictive person-related perceptions of control. (PsycINFO Database Record
本纵向研究考察了老年人样本中悲伤和愤怒的体验。基于情感老化的离散情绪理论，预计随着时间的推移，老年人的悲伤感而非愤怒感会增加。此外，我们假设，对控制的低感知的个体间和个体内差异与悲伤的相关性强于愤怒。这项为期 10 年的研究跟踪了 187 名居住在社区的老年人（M = 72.25，SD = 5.81）。在六次随访中，参与者的悲伤、愤怒、感知控制以及社会人口统计学特征都进行了评估。分层线性模型表明，悲伤感而非愤怒感随时间线性增加。这些悲伤感的增加仅出现在报告整个研究期间感知控制水平较低（而非较高）且感知控制呈纵向下降（而非增加）的老年人中。此外，感知控制的非线性个体内减少预测了整个样本中参与者的悲伤感，但仅在早期而非晚期老年时与愤怒感相关。这些发现通过记录老年人愤怒和悲伤的独特性，支持了情感老化的离散情绪理论。这两种负面情绪在与年龄相关的变化和预测个体感知控制方面存在差异。
