The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 59:P261-P269 (2004)
© 2004 The Gerontological Society of America
Age Differences in Emotion-Regulation Strategies in Handling Everyday Problems
Fredda Blanchard-Fields1,,
Renee Stein2 and
Tonya L. Watson3
1 School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.
2 Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
3 Senior Services Inc., Flagstaff, Arizona.
Address correspondence to Fredda Blanchard-Fields, School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0170. E-mail: fb12{at}prism.gatech.edu
We examined age differences in problem-focused and emotion-regulatory problem-solving strategy use for self-generated family problems. Young, middle-aged, and older participants generated family problem situations that were high and low in emotional salience. They were asked both how they solved the problem and how they managed emotions involved in the problem. We conducted analyses on three categories of problem-solving strategies: instrumental strategies, proactive emotion regulation, and passive emotion regulation. When regulating emotions, middle-aged adults used more proactive emotion-regulation strategies than older adults, and older adults used more passive emotion-regulation strategies than middle-aged adults. These effects were driven by the high emotional salience condition.
Copyright © 2004 by The Gerontological Society of America.
