Abstract
Objectives
The present study assessed age-related differences in the success of instructed mindful attention and positive reappraisal, as well as trait affect and emotion regulation.
Methods
Young and older adults were instructed to regulate their emotions while viewing frightening and amusing films using three separate instructions (just watch, positive reappraisal, or mindful attention). Participants rated the strength of their experience of the target emotion (fear or amusement) and success in following the instruction to regulate. Electrodermal activity was recorded continuously, and facial electromyography measured positive and negative facial expression. Trait measures of affect and emotion regulation were also administered.
Results
Electrodermal activity provided strong evidence that young adults successfully regulate fear using mindful attention and positive reappraisal relative to a just watch condition. Older adults’ electrodermal activity is was constant across conditions, and lower than young adults’ in the just watch condition, suggesting general hyporeactivity to fear. Subjective data suggest that young, but not older, adults successfully downregulate amusement using mindful attention.
Conclusion
These findings provide some evidence for emotion regulation benefits in young relative to older age. However, these youthful benefits may reflect reduced initial reactivity among older adults.
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Funding
This study was funded by the Australian Research Council (grant number DP200100876).
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BB: designed and executed the study, completed the data analyses, and wrote the paper. CG: collaborated with the analysis and interpretation of physiological data. IK: collaborated with the design and writing of the study. EW: provided coding expertise that was applied to complex physiological data collection, data extraction and artefact correction. PB: collaborated with the design and writing of the study.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Western Sydney University IRB committee (approval number H11503) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Brady, B., Gonsalvez, C., Kneebone, I.I. et al. Age-related differences in instructed positive reappraisal and mindful attention. Mindfulness 12, 646–658 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01523-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01523-2