Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.
School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University.
Emotion. 2020 Mar;20(2):149-163. doi: 10.1037/emo0000551. Epub 2018 Nov 29.
We examined age-related changes in emotional behavior in a sample of middle-aged and older long-term married couples over a 13-year period. Data were collected at 3 waves, each occurring 5 to 6 years apart. For the present study, only couples who participated in all 3 waves were examined (n = 87). Couples were either in the middle-aged group (40-50 years old, married at least 15 years) or the older group (60-70 years old, married at least 35 years). At each wave, couples engaged in 15-min unrehearsed conversations about an area of disagreement in their marriage. Emotional behaviors during the conversation were objectively coded using the Specific Affect Coding System. Latent growth curve analyses revealed that, for both husbands and wives, negative emotional behavior (primarily belligerence, defensiveness, fear/tension, and whining) decreased and positive emotional behavior (primarily humor, enthusiasm, and validation) increased with age. Findings generalized across middle-aged and older cohorts and levels of marital satisfaction. These findings support theories that suggest that positive emotion increases and negative emotion decreases with age, expanding upon previous findings by examining objectively coded emotional behaviors longitudinally in an interpersonal context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
我们在一项为期 13 年的研究中，对中年和老年长期已婚夫妇样本中的情绪行为随年龄的变化进行了研究。数据在 3 个时间点收集，每个时间点相隔 5 到 6 年。本研究仅对参加了全部 3 个时间点的夫妇进行了检查（n=87）。这些夫妇要么属于中年组（40-50 岁，结婚至少 15 年），要么属于老年组（60-70 岁，结婚至少 35 年）。在每个时间点，夫妇都会进行 15 分钟的无准备对话，讨论他们婚姻中存在分歧的一个领域。在对话过程中，使用特定情感编码系统客观地对情感行为进行编码。潜在增长曲线分析表明，对于丈夫和妻子来说，负面情感行为（主要是挑衅、防御、恐惧/紧张和抱怨）随着年龄的增长而减少，而正面情感行为（主要是幽默、热情和肯定）则随着年龄的增长而增加。这些发现适用于中年和老年群体以及不同婚姻满意度水平。这些发现支持了积极情绪随年龄增长而增加、消极情绪随年龄增长而减少的理论，通过在人际环境中对客观编码的情感行为进行纵向检查，进一步扩展了之前的研究结果。（APA 版权所有，2020）。
