Emotion in Younger and Older Adults: Retrospective and Prospective Associations with Sleep and Physical Activity

Abstract

Older adults may have superior emotion regulation skills than younger adults and the authors suggest that as emotion regulation capacities increase with age, emotions may be less swayed by external events or even by internal traits. The current retrospective and prospective study further tested this hypothesis by determining if the emotions of younger adults were more reactive to two behaviors (i.e., physical activity, sleep) than for older adults. Results supported predictions. Specifically, retrospective self-reports and prospective diary data about physical activity and sleep exhibited stronger associations with emotion for younger than older persons. Implications for emotional well-being across the life span are discussed.

The authors express their deep gratitude and thanks to Aline Sayer, PhD, for her generous guidance and support regarding statistical analyses.

Notes

Note. Possible range for PA and NA is 1 to 7; range for the PSQI is 0 to 21. PAR scores are the product of duration of physical activity times metabolic cost.

∗Value is significantly greater than for older adults (p < .05).

Note. HLM = hierarchical linear modeling; NA = negative affect; PA = positive affect; LTPA = leisure time physical activity. Age group was coded as a dichotomous variable in analyses (1 = older adult; 2 = younger adult).

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01.

¹Similar results were found for all HLM models for physical activity and sleep when Level 1 factors were group rather than grand mean centered.

Note. HLM = hierarchical linear modeling; NA = negative affect; PA = positive affect. Age group was coded as a dichotomous variable in analyses (1 = older adult; 2 = younger adult).

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01.