Psychology of aging. Lecture 7: Personality and emotions.

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Psychology of aging.Lecture 7 Personality and
emotions.

• Prof Louise Phillips

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Personality and age

• Development or stability?

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Stage v trait theories

• Is personality complete by the end of childhood
  (Freud)?
• Trait theories
• Focus on individual differences
• Or does development continue (Jung)?
• Stage theories
• Focus on common experiences

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Trait theories of personality

• Dispositional traits
• Based on comparing individuals
• Stability over time

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MacCrae Costa 5 factor model of personality

• Five dimensions of personality
• Neuroticism (N)
• Extraversion (E)
• Openness (O)
• Agreeableness (A)
• Conscientiousness (C)
• Evidence self-ratings, language, other-ratings
• Personality stable from age 30
• Evidence self-ratings and spouse-ratings.

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Aging effects on Big 5 personality traits

• Baltimore Longitudinal Study
• Personality structure same young/old
• Rank ordering similar over many years
• E.g. neuroticism, 12-year stability 0.82.
• Mean levels do show some change
• Slight decreases extraversion
• Neuroticism some people increase, some decrease
• Openness to experience decreases

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Longitudinal studies Rank ordering and mean
levels over time.
extraversion
Time3
Time1
Time2
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Cross sectional evidence on traits

• Cross-sectional evidence
• Older adults lower than young in
• Neuroticism, extraversion, openness
• Older adults higher than young in
• Agreeableness, conscientiousness
• Differences occur early mid adulthood
• Evidence of generational changes in anxiety

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Critiques of 5 factor model

• Role of sociocultural context
• Personality traits not strong predictors of
  behaviour
• Problems in using self-assessment questionnaires
  to assess personality
• Social desirability
• Social comparison processes.
• Need to look more at individual rather than group
  level

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Stage theories of personality

• Continued personality development across the
  lifespan
• Emphasis on common stages e.g. midlife crisis
• e.g. Shakespeares 7 ages of man

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Jung Stages of adulthood

• Continued development of personality
• Shift from social to spiritual needs
• Become more introverted with age
• Decrease in gender-stereotyped behaviour
• E.g. women may behave increasingly in ways
  perceived as masculine as they age

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Kansas City Studies, 1960s

• Cumming Henry
• Disengagement theory.
• From mid-50s less involved with world
• Blurring of male female roles in old age.
• Problems
• Rely on projective tests
• Selective withdrawal

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Erikson psychosocial development

• 8 psychosocial stages with specific conflict at
  each stage.
• Must resolve for successful development
• In adulthood generativity v stagnation
• Evidence that successful generativity relates to
  well-being in mid-life.
• In old age ego integrity v despair

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Critique of stage theories

• Often broad, non-specific and untestable
• Evidence based on small samples
• Highly selective
• Often men only
• Assume life-stages the same for everyone
• Absence of mid-life crisis for most people
• Ignores individual differences

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Experience and perception of emotions in old age
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Socioemotional selectivity theory Carstensen

• Young adults
• Focus on future-orientated goals
• Seeking information
• Developing new relationships
• Older focus more on
• Limited time perspective so focus on goals in the
  present
• Maximise experience of positive emotion
• Engaging in positive social interactions.

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Age and social and emotional regulation

• Socioemotional selectivity predicts that older
  adults will
• Choose situations which will maximise positive
  emotions
• Attend more to, and remember more, positive
  information
• Reappraise situations in a more positive way
• Regulate emotions to emphasize the positive

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Memory for emotional material

• Mather et al. (2003)
• Participants shown positive negative pictures
• Results
• Young remembered more negative pictures than old
• No age difference for positive pictures
• Conclude old inhibit negative info and divert
  attention to positive info.

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Experience and regulation of emotions.

• No age difference in life satisfaction
• US, China, Nigeria.
• Lawton
• Older people more content, less anxiety
• Very old age feel more calm, high sense of
  self-efficacy
• Regulation of emotions
• Old report better control of emotions such as
  anger than young

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Age and emotional processing.

• Perception of others emotional state

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Perception of emotions and age

• Life experience theories
• Older adults more experience of emotions.
• Predicts older adults better at decoding others
  emotional states.
• Neuropsychological theories
• Areas of brain most affected by age
• Frontal lobes, limbic system
• Also involved in emotion decoding
• Predicts older adults worse at decoding others
  emotional states.

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Age effects on emotion perception

• Ruffman et al. (2008) meta-analysis
• Older adults much worse at identifying
• anger, fear, sadness
• Smaller age effect in identifying
• surprise, happiness
• Support neuropsychological theory?
• Changes in frontal and limbic regions?
• Or socio-emotional selectivity?
• Avoid negative emotions?

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Conclusions

• Personality and age
• Individual stability in personality
• Some developmental changes related to personal
  experiences
• Socioemotional selectivity theory
• Older adult focused on current emotions.
• Emotions, older adults
• Better experience and control of emotions
• Poorer at remembering and interpreting negative
  emotional information

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Questions

• 1) Evaluate the idea that personality develops in
  ordered stages throughout adulthood.
• 2) Are personality traits stable across the
  lifespan?
• 3) Outline Carstensens socioemotional
  selectivity theory and the implications it has
  for aging and emotions.
• 4) Do older adults have a experience more
  negative emotions than young?
• 5) Are older adults better or worse than young at
  perceiving and remembering emotional material?