Motivational Changes in Response to Blocked Goals and Foreshortened Time: Testing Alternatives to Socioemotional Selectivity Theory.

Socioemotional selectivity theory contends that when people perceive time as limited, they prioritize emotionally meaningful goals. Although empirical support for the theory has been found in several studies, 2 alternative explanations for the pattern of findings remain: (a) emotional goals are pursued by default because nonemotional goals are blocked, and (b) emotional goals are pursued in search of emotional support rather than emotional meaning. This study tested these alternatives by examining social goals in response to blocked goals and foreshortened time. Findings reveal distinct motivational patterns, as reflected in social preferences and self-reported social goals, in response to the 2 types of constraints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in social preferences among Taiwanese and mainland Chinese: The role of perceived time.

Socioemotional selectivity theory holds that as people recognize the inevitable constraint of time imposed by mortality, their social goals change, motivating them to limit social contacts to those with whom they are emotionally close. This theory was tested among Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese. As predicted, results showed that older adults (aged 60–90 years) in both cultures were more likely than younger adults (aged 18–30 years) to prefer familiar social partners who were most likely to provide emotionally close social interactions. Mainland Chinese, who as a group have shorter actuarial life expectancy, were more likely to prefer familiar social partners than were Taiwanese. These age and cultural differences were eliminated when differences in perceived time were statistically controlled for. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related positivity enhancement is not universal: Older Chinese look away from positive stimuli.

Socioemotional selectivity theory postulates that with age, people are motivated to derive emotional meaning from life, leading them to pay more attention to positive relative to negative/neutral stimuli. The authors argue that cultures that differ in what they consider to be emotionally meaningful may show this preference to different extents. Using eye-tracking techniques, the authors compared visual attention toward emotional (happy, fearful, sad, and angry) and neutral facial expressions among 46 younger and 57 older Hong Kong Chinese. In contrast to prior Western findings, older but not younger Chinese looked away from happy facial expressions, suggesting that they do not show attentional preferences toward positive stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time counts: Future time perspective, goals, and social relationships.

On the basis of postulates derived from socioemotional selectivity theory, the authors explored the extent to which future time perspective (FTP) is related to social motivation, and to the composition and perceived quality of personal networks. Four hundred eighty German participants with ages ranging from 20 to 90 yrs took part in the study. In 2 card-sort tasks, participants indicated their partner preference and goal priority. Participants also completed questionnaires on personal networks and social satisfaction. Older people, as a group, perceived their future time as more limited than younger people. Individuals who perceived future time as being limited prioritized emotionally meaningful goals, whereas individuals who perceived their futures as open-ended prioritized instrumental or knowledge-related goals. Priority of goal domains was found to be differently associated with the size, composition, and perceived quality of personal networks depending on FTP. Prioritizing emotion-regulatory goals was associated with greater social satisfaction and less perceived strain with others when participants perceived their future as limited. Findings underscore the importance of FTP in the self-regulation of social relationships and the subjective experience associated with them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging, emotion, and health-related decision strategies: Motivational manipulations can reduce age differences.

According to socioemotional selectivity theory, age-related constraints on time horizons are associated with motivational changes that increasingly favor goals related to emotional well-being. Such changes have implications for emotionally taxing tasks such as making decisions, especially when decisions require consideration of unpleasant information. This study examined age differences in information acquisition and recall in the health care realm. Using computer-based decision scenarios, 60 older and 60 young adults reviewed choice criteria that contained positive, negative, and neutral information about different physicians and health care plans. As predicted, older adults reviewed and recalled a greater proportion of positive than of negative information compared with young adults. Age differences were eliminated when motivational manipulations elicited information-gathering goals or when time perspective was controlled statistically. Implications for improving decision strategies in older adults are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Considering adaptation in preference elicitations.

Objective: Patients with chronic health conditions usually place higher utility on their condition than the public does. One explanation for this discrepancy is that healthy people focus on the negative aspects of the condition without considering their own ability to emotionally adapt to the condition over time. The aim of this randomized experimental study was to test whether people would give higher utility ratings for chronic health conditions when they were encouraged to consider their own ability to adapt to difficult situations before giving their ratings. Main Outcome Measure: Utility ratings for four chronic health conditions. Results: The authors presented scenarios describing 4 chronic health conditions to 1,117 respondents drawn from a demographically balanced U.S. Internet panel. The adaptation exercise did not influence respondents' valuations. However, utility values increasingly improved with decreasing ratings of how upsetting it would be to live with the condition over time. Conclusion: The authors speculate that asking people to think about adaptation changes their evaluations of what it would feel like to live with chronic illness, but doing so does not change how much they are willing to trade off to avoid that chronic illness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of time on social preferences: Implications for life-span development.

Socioemotional selectivity theory holds that the reliable decline in social contact in later life is due, in part, to older people's preferences for emotionally meaningful social partners and that such preferences are due not to age, per se, but to perceived limitations on time. Confirming the theory, in both the United States and Hong Kong, older people showed a preference for familiar social partners, whereas younger people did not show this preference. However, when asked to imagine an expansive future, older people's bias for familiar social partners disappeared. Conversely, in the face of a hypothesized constraint on time, both younger and older people preferred familiar social partners. Moreover, social preferences in Hong Kong differed before and after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, which was construed as a sociopolitical time constraint. One year prior to the handover, only older people displayed preferences for familiar partners. Two months before the handover, both age groups showed such preferences. One year after the handover, once again, only older Hong Kong people preferred familiar social partners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Saving the best for last: How adults treat social partners of different ages.

Older adults report more positive feelings and fewer problems in their relationships than do younger adults. These positive experiences may partially reflect how people treat older adults. Social partners may treat older adults more kindly due to their sense that time remaining to interact with these older adults is limited. Younger (n = 87, age 22 to 35) and older (n = 89, age 65 to 77) participants indicated how positively they would behave (i.e., express affection, proffer respect, send sentimental cards) and what types of conflict strategies they would use in response to hypothetical negative interactions with two close social partners, a younger adult and an older adult. Multilevel models revealed that participants were more avoidant and less confrontational when interacting with older adults than when interacting with younger adults. Time perspective of the relationship partially mediated these age differences. Younger and older participants were also more likely to select sentimental cards for older partners than for younger partners. Findings build on socioemotional selectivity theory and the social input model to suggest that social partners facilitate better relationships in late life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stories of commitment: The psychosocial construction of generative lives.

In this study, the authors analyzed the internalized life stories of 40 highly generative people and 30 less generative adults with similar demographic profiles to discern the extent to which the 2 groups constructed different identities. The highly generative adults were more likely to reconstruct the past and anticipate the future as variations on a prototypical commitment story in which the protagonist (a) enjoys an early family blessing or advantage, (b) is sensitized to others' suffering at an early age, (c) is guided by a clear and compelling personal ideology that remains stable over time, (d) transforms or redeems bad scenes into good outcomes, and (e) sets goals for the future to benefit society. Commitment stories sustain and reinforce the modern adult's efforts to contribute in positive ways to the next generation. The findings connect to a growing interdisciplinary literature on narrative and human lives and suggest a new research agenda that draws on nomothetic conventions to interpret storied psychosocial constructions that people fashion to make sense of their lives in time and in culture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unpleasant situations elicit different emotional responses in younger and older adults.

Older adults report less distress in response to interpersonal conflicts than do younger adults, yet few researchers have examined factors that may contribute to these age differences. Emotion regulation is partially determined by the initial cognitive and emotional reactions that events elicit. The authors examined reported thoughts and emotions of younger and older adults (N = 195) while they listened to 3 different audiotaped conversations in which people were ostensibly making disparaging remarks about them. At 4 points during each scenario, the tape paused and participants engaged in a talk-aloud procedure and rated their level of anger and sadness. Findings reveal that older adults reported less anger but equal levels of sadness compared to younger adults, and their comments were judged by coders as less negative. Older adults made fewer appraisals about the people speaking on the tape and expressed less interest in learning more about their motives. Together, findings are consistent with age-related increases in processes that promote disengagement from offending situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotions, defenses, coping mechanisms, and symptoms.

Used L. A. Gottschalk and G. C. Gleser's (1969) method of content analysis to examine 5-min samples of speech elicited from 6 different groups of Ss: 30 young normal men (mean age 25.7 yrs), 30 normative adults (aged 20–50 yrs), 30 normative schoolchildren (aged 6–26 yrs), 20 adults with psychoneuroses, 44 emotionally disturbed criminal offenders (mean age 25.6 yrs), and 22 acute schizophrenics (aged 21–55 yrs). Ss were given purposely ambiguous standardized instructions simulating the request to free-associate. Findings indicate that displacements and denials in mentally healthy individuals are more likely to function as coping mechanisms in contrast to their function as defenses or symptoms in mentally disordered people. No significant effects of sex, age, intelligence, or state of consciousness were found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preferences for emotional information in older and younger adults: A meta-analysis of memory and attention tasks.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis to determine the magnitude of older and younger adults' preferences for emotional stimuli in studies of attention and memory. Analyses involved 1,085 older adults from 37 independent samples and 3,150 younger adults from 86 independent samples. Both age groups exhibited small to medium emotion salience effects (i.e., preference for emotionally valenced stimuli over neutral stimuli) as well as positivity preferences (i.e., preference for positively valenced stimuli over neutral stimuli) and negativity preferences (i.e., preference for negatively valenced stimuli to neutral stimuli). There were few age differences overall. Type of measurement appeared to influence the magnitude of effects; recognition studies indicated significant age effects, where older adults showed smaller effects for emotion salience and negativity preferences than younger adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional convergence between people over time.

The authors propose that people in relationships become emotionally similar over time--as this similarity would help coordinate the thoughts and behaviors of the relationship partners, increase their mutual understanding, and foster their social cohesion. Using laboratory procedures to induce and assess emotional response, the authors found that dating partners (Study 1) and college roommates (Studies 2 and 3) became more similar in their emotional responses over the course of a year. Further, relationship partners with less power made more of the change necessary for convergence to occur. Consistent with the proposed benefits of emotional similarity, relationships whose partners were more emotionally similar were more cohesive and less likely to dissolve. Discussion focuses on implications of emotional convergence and on potential mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age related changes in the control of attention in depth.

In 2 experiments, the authors examined the control of spatial attention in depth in advanced age. Observers viewed 2 sets of lines that overlapped in two-dimensional (2-D) space but that were presented at different depth locations. An exogenous cue indicated the depth at which a colored target line would appear. On some trials, a distracting colored element was also presented. The luminance of this distracter varied from high to low. For both older and younger adults, distractors slowed reaction time less if they were at a different depth from the target. This effect was more robust for older adults with low-luminance distractors, indicating an important role for target features as well as attentional control. Adding another feature (i.e., color) that distinguished between target and distracter reduced the effects of slowing shown by the older observers and eliminated the cost of low-luminance distractors for all observers. The results suggest that attentional control in depth is maintained in aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memories of social interactions: Age differences in emotional intensity.

The current study examined age differences in the intensity of emotions experienced during social interactions. Because emotions are felt most intensely in situations central to motivational goals, age differences in emotional intensity may exist in social situations that meet the goals for one age group more than the other. Guided by theories of emotional intensity and socioemotional selectivity, it was hypothesized that social partner type would elicit different affective responses by age. Younger (n = 71) and older (n = 71) adults recalled experiences of positive and negative emotions with new friends, established friends, and family members from the prior week. Compared with younger adults, older adults reported lower intensity positive emotions with new friends, similarly intense positive emotions with established friends, and higher intensity positive emotions with family members. Older adults reported lower intensity negative emotions for all social partners than did younger adults, but this difference was most pronounced for interactions with new friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moving toward more perfect unions: Daily and long-term consequences of approach and avoidance goals in romantic relationships.

In 2 daily experience studies and a laboratory study, the authors test predictions from approach-avoidance motivational theory to understand how dating couples can maintain feelings of relationship satisfaction in their daily lives and over the course of time. Approach goals were associated with increased relationship satisfaction on a daily basis and over time, particularly when both partners were high in approach goals. Avoidance goals were associated with decreases in relationship satisfaction over time, and people were particularly dissatisfied when they were involved with a partner with high avoidance goals. People high in approach goals and their partners were rated as relatively more satisfied and responsive to a partner's needs by outside observers in the lab, whereas people with high avoidance goals and their partners were rated as less satisfied and responsive. Positive emotions mediated the link between approach goals and daily satisfaction in both studies, and responsiveness to the partner's needs was an additional behavioral mechanism in Study 2. Implications of these findings for approach-avoidance motivational theory and for the maintenance of satisfying relationships over time are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) be effectively used with people who have devout beliefs in God and religion?

Several writers on religion and psychotherapy claim that people who follow a "loving God" model and who see God as a partner who works with them to resolve their problems are less emotionally disturbed and can benefit more from "rational" systems of therapy than religionists who have a more negative view of God. Some authors have specifically written that rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) includes many religious philosophies and that the principles and practices of REBT are similar to those endorsed by certain kinds of devout religionists. In this article, the author describes the constructive philosophies of REBT and shows how they are similar to those of many religionists in regard to unconditional self-acceptance, high frustration tolerance, unconditional acceptance of others, the desire rather than the need for achievement and approval, and other mental health goals. It shows how REBT is compatible with some important religious views and can be used effectively with many clients who have absolutistic philosophies about God and religion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

No aging bias favoring memory for positive material: Evidence from a heterogeneity-homogeneity list paradigm using emotionally toned words.

Some authors argue for a memory advantage of older adults for positively toned material. To investigate the contribution of selective processing to a positivity effect, the authors investigated young (n = 72, aged 18 to 31) and older (n = 72, aged 64 to 75) adults' memory for emotionally toned words using a multitrial paradigm that compares performance for heterogeneous (mixed valence) and homogeneous (single valence) lists. Regarding the age comparison, there was no evidence for an aging bias favoring positive material. Moreover, older adults' memory was less affected by emotion-based processing prioritization. Although there was no support for age-specific processing biases in memory for emotionally toned words, the findings are consistent with proposals that negative information receives processing priority in some contexts. Possible limits to the generalizability of the present findings (e.g., to nonverbal material) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)