Accumulating evidence now points to older individuals being, on average, successful emotion regulators.Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999) has been offered as amotivational account of how older individuals proactively regulate their socieomotionalfunctioning in the faceof decreasing physical and cognitive resources. Recent studies on the cognitive mechanisms that facilitatethis emotion regulation have suggested a positivity bias in older adults' information processing. However,while the findings of a positivity bias in aging have been consistent in the memory domain, the evidence for apositivity bias in attention has been more mixed. Moreover, most previous work on these patterns ofinformation processing has simply observed cognitive biases toward emotional information among olderadults and assumed that these biases are linked to emotion regulation. The studies in this proposal aim todirectly investigate the role of information processing in on-line regulation of emotional states in adulthoodand old age. Eye tracking will be used as a real-time measure of visual attention, and will be combined withother cognitive measures to provide a thorough assessment of on-line emotional processing. The first studywill focus on demonstrating that older individuals use information processing as a tool to regulate theiremotions as they happen; the second study will use a training paradigm to more conclusively demonstratecausal links between information processing biases and ability to regulate emotions in the face of negativeinformation. Then, the final study will address the critical issue of the adaptive function of such emotion-regulating cognitive biases, by presenting health-relevant negative information and testing whether cognitivebiases facilitate feeling good but impair health-promoting behavior. Together, the studies in the proposal willuse cutting-edge technology to discern specifically how older individuals use information processing in theservice of emotion regulation and whether this has costs for other processes. This work has clearimplications not just for understanding socioemotional development in adulthood and old age, but also forclarifying causal links between cognition, ability to regulate emotions, and health-related outcomes.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
7R01AG026323-06
Application #
8373899
Study Section
Social Psychology, Personality and Interpersonal Processes Study Section (SPIP)
Program Officer
Nielsen, Lisbeth
Project Start
2006-07-01
Project End
2012-08-30
Budget Start
2012-01-01
Budget End
2012-08-30
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$32,485
Indirect Cost
Name
Northeastern University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
001423631
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02115
Isaacowitz, Derek M; Livingstone, Kimberly M; Harris, Julia A et al. (2015) Mobile eye tracking reveals little evidence for age differences in attentional selection for mood regulation. Emotion 15:151-61
Stanley, Jennifer Tehan; Isaacowitz, Derek M (2015) Caring more and knowing more reduces age-related differences in emotion perception. Psychol Aging 30:383-395
Noh, Soo Rim; Isaacowitz, Derek M (2015) The effects of varying contextual demands on age-related positive gaze preferences. Psychol Aging 30:356-68
Lohani, Monika; Isaacowitz, Derek M (2014) Age differences in managing response to sadness elicitors using attentional deployment, positive reappraisal and suppression. Cogn Emot 28:678-97
Isaacowitz, Derek M; Harris, Julia A (2014) Middle-aged adults facing skin cancer information: fixation, mood, and behavior. Psychol Aging 29:342-50
Stanley, Jennifer Tehan; Lohani, Monika; Isaacowitz, Derek M (2014) Age-related differences in judgments of inappropriate behavior are related to humor style preferences. Psychol Aging 29:528-41
Rovenpor, Daniel R; Skogsberg, Nikolaus J; Isaacowitz, Derek M (2013) The choices we make: an examination of situation selection in younger and older adults. Psychol Aging 28:365-76
Stanley, Jennifer Tehan; Zhang, Xin; Fung, Helene H et al. (2013) Cultural differences in gaze and emotion recognition: Americans contrast more than Chinese. Emotion 13:36-46
Noh, Soo Rim; Isaacowitz, Derek M (2013) Emotional faces in context: age differences in recognition accuracy and scanning patterns. Emotion 13:238-49
Isaacowitz, Derek M (2012) Mood Regulation in Real-Time: Age Differences in the Role of Looking. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 21:237-242

Showing the most recent 10 out of 28 publications