Park Yoobin, Gordon Amie M, Mendes Wendy Berry
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI USA.
Affect Sci. 2023 Aug 12;4(3):487-499. doi: 10.1007/s42761-023-00207-z. eCollection 2023 Sep.
How does physiological reactivity to emotional experiences change with age? Previous studies addressing this question have mostly been conducted in laboratory settings during which emotions are induced via pictures, films, or relived memories, raising external validity questions. In the present research, we draw upon two datasets collected using ecological momentary assessment methods (totaling 134,723 daily reports from 14,436 individuals) to examine age differences in heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) reactivity to naturally occurring emotional experiences. We first examined how older and younger individuals differ in the prevalence of emotions varying in valence and arousal. On average, people reported experiencing positive emotions (high or low arousal) more than 70% of the time they were asked, and older (vs. younger) individuals tended to report positive emotions more frequently. In terms of physiological reactivity, we found that age was associated with reduced HR and BP reactivity. Some evidence was also found that the magnitude of such age differences may depend on the valence or arousal of the experienced emotion. The present findings have implications for understanding how emotions can contribute to physical health across the lifespan.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-023-00207-z.
对情绪体验的生理反应如何随年龄变化？以往针对这个问题的研究大多是在实验室环境中进行的，在这些研究中，情绪是通过图片、电影或回忆唤起的，这引发了外部效度的问题。在本研究中，我们利用两个采用生态瞬时评估方法收集的数据集（共来自14436人的134723份每日报告）来检验心率（HR）和血压（BP）对自然发生的情绪体验的反应中的年龄差异。我们首先研究了年龄较大和较小的个体在不同效价和唤醒水平的情绪发生率上有何不同。平均而言，人们报告在被询问的时间里超过70%的时间体验到积极情绪（高唤醒或低唤醒），并且年龄较大（与年龄较小相比）的个体倾向于更频繁地报告积极情绪。在生理反应方面，我们发现年龄与心率和血压反应的降低有关。还发现了一些证据表明这种年龄差异的程度可能取决于所经历情绪的效价或唤醒水平。本研究结果对于理解情绪如何在整个生命周期中对身体健康产生影响具有启示意义。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s42761-023-00207-z获取的补充材料。
