The Role of Autobiographical Resilience Memories in Emotion Regulation: An Account of Age Differences in Mnemonic and Positive Reappraisal

ABSTRACT

A lifetime of resilience through emotionally challenging experiences may benefit older adults, lending to emotion regulation mastery with time. Yet the influence of autobiographical experiences on momentary reappraisal, the reinterpretation of negative stimuli as more positive, has never been empirically tested. This online study examined the extent to which associating life memories of resilience with novel negative scenarios enhanced reappraisal efficacy and reduced difficulty to reappraise. Younger and older adults reappraised negative images by associating reappraisals to freely selected autobiographical resilience memories, cued autobiographical resilience memories, or by finding situational silver linings without mnemonic association (control). Changes in image emotional intensity ratings revealed no difference across reappraisal conditions for younger adults, while older adults most effectively down-regulated emotional intensity using the control reappraisal strategy. Older adults found autobiographical memories more helpful for mood regulation and less difficult to implement, and identified greater similarities between novel negative scenarios and their memories than younger adults. Surprisingly, greater similarity between resilience memories and negative images was associated with lower reappraisal efficacy for both age groups. Findings demonstrate the age-equivalent benefits of utilizing reappraisals associated with past narratives of resilience and suggest a sacrifice of immediate hedonic benefit for disproportionately greater subjective benefits with age.

Acknowledgments

This material is supported by a National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellowship from the National Institute on Aging awarded to IO (F31 AG 069409–01). This work is also supported by internal start-up funding from the University of Massachusetts Amherst awarded to BMK.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/0361073X.2023.2254659

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institute on Aging [F31 AG 069409-01]; University of Massachusetts Amherst.