Stoica Teodora, Andrews Eric S, Deffner Austin M, Griffith Christopher, Grilli Matthew D, Andrews-Hanna Jessica R
Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, 1503 E. University Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA.
Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, University of Arizona, Tucso, AZ USA.
Affect Sci. 2024 Jun 24;5(2):141-159. doi: 10.1007/s42761-024-00239-z. eCollection 2024 Jun.
Despite the prevalence and importance of resting state thought for daily functioning and psychological well-being, it remains unclear how such thoughts differ between young and older adults. Age-related differences in the affective tone of resting state thoughts, including the affective language used to describe them, could be a novel manifestation of the positivity effect, with implications for well-being. To examine this possibility, a total of 77 young adults ( = 24.9 years, 18-35 years) and 74 cognitively normal older adults ( = 68.6 years, 58-83 years) spoke their thoughts freely during a think-aloud paradigm across two studies. The emotional properties of spoken words and participants' retrospective self-reported affective experiences were computed and examined for age differences and relationships with psychological well-being. Study 1, conducted before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed that older adults exhibited more diversity of positive, but not negative, affectively tinged words compared to young adults and more positive self-reported thoughts. Despite being conducted virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, study 2 replicated many of study 1's findings, generalizing results across samples and study contexts. In an aggregated analysis of both samples, positive diversity predicted higher well-being beyond other metrics of affective tone, and the relationship between positive diversity and well-being was not moderated by age. Considering that older adults also exhibited higher well-being, these results hint at the possibility that cognitively healthy older adults' propensity to experience more diverse positive concepts during natural periods of restful thought may partly underlie age-related differences in well-being and reveal a novel expression of the positivity effect.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-024-00239-z.
尽管静息状态下的思维对于日常功能和心理健康普遍且重要，但目前尚不清楚年轻人和老年人的此类思维有何不同。静息状态下思维的情感基调（包括用于描述它们的情感语言）中与年龄相关的差异，可能是积极效应的一种新表现，对幸福感有影响。为了检验这种可能性，在两项研究中，共有77名年轻人（平均年龄=24.9岁，18 - 35岁）和74名认知正常的老年人（平均年龄=68.6岁，58 - 83岁）在出声思维范式中自由表达他们的想法。计算并检查了口语单词的情感属性以及参与者回顾性自我报告的情感体验，以探讨年龄差异以及与心理健康的关系。在新冠疫情开始之前进行的研究1表明，与年轻人相比，老年人在带有积极情感色彩（而非消极情感色彩）的词汇上表现出更多样性，并且自我报告的积极思维更多。尽管研究2是在新冠疫情期间以虚拟方式进行的，但它重复了研究1的许多发现，将结果推广到不同样本和研究背景。在对两个样本的综合分析中，积极多样性比情感基调的其他指标更能预测更高的幸福感，并且积极多样性与幸福感之间的关系不受年龄的调节。鉴于老年人也表现出更高的幸福感，这些结果暗示了一种可能性，即认知健康的老年人在自然的静息思维阶段体验更多样化积极概念的倾向，可能部分解释了与年龄相关的幸福感差异，并揭示了积极效应的一种新表现形式。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s42761-024-00239-z获取的补充材料。
