Emotional experience in younger and older adults.

This study examined the affective experiences of young, middle-aged, and older adults using differential emotions theory as a guide. The results indicated more age similarities than differences. There was no support for the claim that there is a drift toward more negative affect with age nor was there evidence that emotion is less salient or important to older people. There was support, however, for the hypothesis that classes of emotional experience have somewhat different elicitors at different stages in the life cycle and that people monitor and inhibit the expression of their feelings in different ways over the adult years. The most striking finding was that conventional constraints on the overt display of affect appear to have less impact on older versus younger individuals. The findings indicate that emotion is more important in the lives of women and that they may engage in more emotional masking than men.