Emotion Regulation And Mental Health In Older Adults

Although older adults may face significant health challenges, they tend to have better emotion regulation skills than younger or middle-age adults. Why is this and how might we use this knowledge to promote better health and well-being in adulthood and later life? Emotion, Aging, and Health explores the reciprocal relations between aging and emotion as well as how best to promote mental and physical health across the lifespan. The authors discuss the neural and cognitive mechanisms behind age-related shifts in affective experience and processing. In addition to presenting emotion-regulation strategies for offsetting age-related declines in mental and physical functioning, they examines the role of culture and motivation in shaping emotional experience across the lifespan along with the factors that determine human illness and human flourishing in old age. By highlighting these major advances in interdisciplinary research, the authors suggest promising avenues for intervention. Book jacket.

Emotions play a central role in every human life, from the moment we are born until we die. They prepare the body for action, guide decisions, and highlight what should be noticed and remembered. Since emotions are central to daily functioning and well-being, it is important to understand the extent to which aging affects the perception of, attention to, memory for, as well as experience and regulation of emotions. An early scientific view of how people's emotions are affected by aging argued that aging led to a deterioration of emotional function. This theory, represented by for example Carl Jung (1875-1961), claimed that old age is a period of life when people feel an increased emotional sameness and less emotional energy. According to this scientific view, the aging emotional landscape was bleached, barren, and flattened. Current psychological research, however, shows that emotion is rather a psychological domain that is relatively unaffected by the aging process or even improves with age, in contrast to most cognitive functions. For example, even though there is evidence that aging is associated with deficits in emotion recognition, various emotional functions seem to remain intact or become better with age, such as the ability to regulate one’s emotions or the extent of experiencing positive emotions. However, more research is needed to determine brain and behavior related, quantitative and qualitative age-related changes of different aspects of emotion processing and emotional functioning. In the current Frontiers research topic we aim to present exciting new findings related to the effects of healthy aging on both more perceptually driven bottom-up as well as more cognitively driven top-down aspects of emotions. In particular, questions such as the following need to be raised and addressed: What neural and behavioral processes are underlying age differences in emotion perception and memory for emotional information? Are there differences between how older and younger adults experience and regulate their emotions, and what drives these differences? Is there a gradual reduction or more of a qualitative change of our emotional experiences over the life cycle, from the turbulent childhood and youth to the mellower old age? And what aspects of age-related changes in emotional processing can be explained by age-related changes in the brain, and which are more affected by other factors such as changes in other body systems, in experiential processes, or in overall life goals?

The field of emotions research has recently seen an unexpected period of growth and expansion, both in traditional psychological literature and in gerontology. The Handbook of Emotion, Adult Development, and Aging provides a broad overview and summary of where this field stands today, specifically with reference to life course issues and aging. Written by a distinguished group of contributing authors, the text is grounded in a life span developmental framework, while advancing a multidimensional view of emotion and its development and incorporating quantitative and qualitative research findings. The book is divided into five parts. Part One discusses five major theoretical perspectives including biological, discrete emotions, ethological, humanistic, and psychosocial. Part Two on affect and cognition discusses the role of emotion in memory, problem solving, and internal perceptions of self and gender. Part Three on emotion and relationships expands on the role of emotion in sibling and parent/child relationships, as well as relationships between friends and romantic partners, and the emotional reaction to interpersonal loss across the life span. Part Four on stress, health, and psychological well-being treats issues of stress and coping, religion, personality, and quality of life. The final part on continuity and change in emotion patterns and personality discusses emotion and emotionality throughout the life span. An ideal reference source for professionals across a wide range of disciplines, the text summarizes recent important developments in this fast growing area of psychology and proposes many new directions for future research. Provides a biopsychological view on emotion in adulthood from a life span context Presents the new perspective on emotion in older adults actively engaged in emotion self-regulation Describes the intimate connection between emotion and the structure of personality Demonstrates a new perspective on what emotion is, its importance across the life span, its connections with cognition, its role in interpersonal relation, and the way it influences both stability and change in adulthood Illustrates the interpersonal nature of emotion Provides theoretically based, leading edge research from international authors Five areas of coverage include: Theoretical perspectives Affect and cognition Emotion and relationships Stress, health, and psychological well-being Continuity and change in emotion patterns and personality Coverage includes: Five major theoretical perspectives, including biological, discrete emotions, ethological, humanistic, and psychosocial The role of emotion in memory, problem-solving, and internal perceptions of self and gender The role of emotion in sibling and parent/child relationships, relationships between friends and romantic partners, and the emotional reaction to interpersonal loss across the lifespan Issues of stress and coping, religion, personality, and quality of life Emotion and emotionality throughout the lifespan

This volume focuses on the role of emotion and emotion regulation in job stress and well-being featuring a number of high-calibre scholars. It provides both an academic and a military perspective on this topic.

The field of social cognitive neuroscience has captured the attention of many researchers during the past ten years. Much of the impetus for this new field came from the development of functional neuroimaging methods that made it possible to unobtrusively measure brain activation over time. Using these methods over the last 30 years has allowed psychologists to move from simple validation questions -- would flashing stimuli activate the visual cortex -- to those about the functional specialization of brain regions-- are there regions in the inferior temporal cortex dedicated to face processing-- to questions that, just a decade ago, would have been considered to be intractable at such a level of analysis. These so-called "intractable" questions are the focus of the chapters in this book, which introduces social cognitive neuroscience research addressing questions of fundamental importance to social psychology: How do we understand and represent other people? How do we represent social groups? How do we regulate our emotions and socially undesirable responses? This book also presents innovative combinations of multiple methodologies, including behavioral experiments, computer modeling, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments, Event-Related Potential (ERP) experiments, and brain lesion studies. It is divided into four sections. The first three sections present the latest research on, respectively, understanding and representing other people, representing social groups, and the interplay of cognition and emotion in social regulation. In the fourth section, contributors step back and consider a range of novel topics that have emerged in the context of social neuroscience research: understanding social exclusion as pain, deconstructing our moral intuitions, understanding cooperative exchanges with other agents, and the effect of aging on brain function and its implications for well-being. Taken together, these chapters provide a rich introduction to an exciting, rapidly developing and expanding field that promises a richer and deeper understanding of the social mind.

This book brings a modern critical approach to bear on the broad range of subjects that used to constitute 'family law.' A key consideration in this collection is the way in which law itself is premised upon, constructing a particular image of the family. By bringing different areas of law together, Probert et al suggest it is possible to explore how differing ideas about 'the family' inform different areas of law. This approach allows Family Life and the Law to analyze the extent to which the law is consistent and/or inconsistent in its concept and treatment of the family across and within disciplines. The book is particularly timely in view of the passage of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, the implications of which reverberate throughout family law and allied disciplines, and the current reconsideration of the position of cohabiting couples.