Emotion complexity and emotion regulation across adulthood

This research used data from a study on daily emotional experience in adulthood to examine the associations between age, emotion
complexity, and emotion regulation. Data were drawn from a study of daily stress that included 239 participants ranging in
age from 18 to 89 from North Central Florida. Two indicators of emotion complexity were considered: emotion differentiation
and the co-occurrence of positive and negative affect. Emotion regulation was assessed in terms of individuals’ likelihood
of maintaining adaptive emotion states. There were no age differences in adults’ co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions.
In contrast to theories suggesting age would be associated with greater emotion complexity, the findings revealed that older
adults had lower differentiation scores than younger adults. Age was also associated with more adaptive patterns of emotion
regulation. Specifically, older adults persisted in low negative states and moved out of high negative states more readily
than younger adults. Finally, neuroticism, self-concept incoherence, mean daily stress, and emotion complexity were associated
with emotion regulation. Notably, adults who reported a greater mix of positive and negative affect moved out of high negative
affect states more rapidly than adults with lower co-occurrence scores. This finding is in keeping with a growing body of
work suggesting that positive affect promotes recovery from negative affect. Overall, the findings suggest that although emotion
complexity is associated with emotion regulation, it does not appear to be a key factor underlying age differences in emotion
regulation.