Zwei Studien zur Generalität und Plastizität des Positivitätseffekts in der Informationsverarbeitung emotionalen Materials bei älteren Erwachsenen
Final Report Abstract
Contrasting cognitive and physical decline, research in emotional aging suggests that most older adults enjoy high levels of affective well-being and emotional stability into their 70s and 80s. In my research at Stanford University, I investigated the contributions of age-related changes in emotional motivation and competence to positive affect trajectories. In particular, I focused on emotion–cognition interactions, including the positivity effect. I used a range of methods that combine laboratory experiments, experience-sampling, and longitudinal studies. Among the major findings were that emotional experience becomes more positive and stable with age, that the positivity effect in emotional memory is generalizable to Eastern cultures, and that older adults show improved affective forecasting for positive, but not negative events. Increasingly I also became interested in the potential "costs" of an emotion-regulatory focus. If individuals, particularly older adults, are motivated to disregard or forget negative information, they may be disadvantaged whenever these negative information are relevant to future events and decisions. We conducted an intervention study examining the role of the positivity effect for older adults’ increased susceptibility to consumer fraud. In my future work, I will apply findings from this research to the work domain. These examples demonstrate the wide-ranging implications of emotional changes across adulthood not only for the well-being of older adults, but also for their decision-making and other behavior in financial and work domains.
Publications
- Emotionsregulation: Strategien, neuronale Grundlagen und Altersveränderungen [Emotion regulation: Strategies, neural basis, and agerelated changes]. In M. Reimann & B. Weber. Neuroökonomie: Grundlagen – Methoden – Anwendungen (pp. 59-84). Wiesbaden: Gabler
Scheibe, S.
- (2009). Effects of regulating emotions on cognitive performance: What is costly for young adults is not so costly for older adults. Psychology and Aging, 24, 217-223
Scheibe, S., & Blanchard-Fields, F.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013807) - (2009). Replicating the positivity effect in picture memory in Koreans: Evidence for crosscultural generalizability. Psychology and Aging, 24, 748-754
Kwon, Y., Scheibe, S., Larkin, G. R., Tsai, J. L., & Carstensen, L. L.
- (2010). Emotional aging: Recent findings and future trends. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 65B, 135-144
Scheibe, S., & Carstensen, L. L.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbp132) - (2010). Emotional experience improves with age: Evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling. Psychology and Aging
Carstensen, L.L., Turan, B., Scheibe, S., Ram, N., Ersner-Hershfield, H., Samanez-Larkin, G., Brooks, K., & Nesselroade, J.R.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021285)
