Age differences in emotionregulation strategies in handling everyday problems

We examined age differences in problem-focused and emotion-regulatory problem-solving strategy use for self-generated family problems. Young, middle-aged, and older participants generated family problem situations that were high and low in emotional salience. They were asked both how they solved the problem and how they managed emotions involved in the problem. We conducted analyses on three categories of problem-solving strategies: instrumental strategies, proactive emotion regulation, and passive emotion regulation. When regulating emotions, middle-aged adults used more proactive emotion-regulation strategies than older adults, and older adults used more passive emotion-regulation strategies than middle-aged adults. These effects were driven by the high emotional salience condition. T HERE is a growing literature suggesting that older adultsare more motivated to regulate negative affect and are effective at doing so (Carstensen, 1992, 1995). Studies supporting this idea examine the outcomes of emotion regulation by asking older adults to report the nature of their emotional experiences in varying contexts. Effective emotion regulation is equated with positive outcomes, that is, fewer negative emotional experiences or greater positive emotiona