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Research Report

Age Differences in Emotion Regulation During a Distressing Film Scene

Published Online:January 01, 2015https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000134

Abstract

Recent research has emphasized age differences in emotion regulation strategies. However, not much is known about age differences in the use of different regulation strategies during a highly distressing film scene that evokes strong negative emotions of anger and sadness. Therefore, we examined age differences in four situation-specific emotion regulation strategies – namely, rumination, distraction, suppression, and mediality (a form of media-specific reappraisal). A sample of 99 older and 108 younger participants reported their current emotional state, then watched a highly distressing film scene, and finally reported their emotional reactions to the scene and the emotion regulation strategies they used. The manipulation check indicated that the film was successful in eliciting strong negative emotions of sadness and anger. Furthermore, after securing measurement invariance, we found that older adults reported higher scores in mediality and suppression than younger adults. No differences were found concerning distraction and rumination. Results are discussed in the light of theoretical considerations.

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