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Motivation and Emotion, Vol. 27, No. 2, June 2003 (°

C 2003)

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and the Regulation

of Emotion in the Second Half of Life1
Laura L. Carstensen,2,5 Helene H. Fung,3 and Susan T. Charles4

Far more attention has been paid to emotion regulation in childhood than in adult-
hood and old age. However, a growing body of empirical research suggests that
the emotion domain is largely spared from deleterious processes associated with
aging and points instead to developmental gains in later life. By applying tenets
from socioemotional selectivity theory, we attempt to explain the observed gains
in terms of motivation. We argue that age is associated with increasing motiva-
tion to derive emotional meaning from life and decreasing motivation to expand
one’s horizons. These changes lead to age differences in social and environmen-
tal choices (consistent with antecedent emotion regulation), coping (consistent
with response-focused regulation), and cognitive processing of positive and neg-
ative information (consistent with goal-directed attention and memory). Broader
implications for life-span development are discussed.
KEY WORDS: motivation; aging; life-span development; memory; emotion regulation.

Emotion regulation in childhood has been conceptualized and studied as a de-

velopmental process by both clinical and developmental researchers (Rothbart,
1994; Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000; Shields, Ryan, & Cichetti, 2001).
When studying emotion regulation in adults, however, researchers have steered
away from ontogenetic change, and instead focused on individual differences in
emotion regulation. Moreover, when age has been considered, the focus has been
on physical decrements in late life thought to cause emotional dysregulation (see
1 Work by the first author was supported by Grant RO1-8816 from the National Institute of Aging. Work
by the second author was supported by a Direct Grant for Research, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Work by the third author was supported by Grant R03-AG19387 from the National Institute of Aging.
2 Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
3 Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China.
4 Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, California.
5 Address all Correspondence to Laura L. Carstensen, Department of Psychology, Stanford University,
Stanford, California.

103
0146-7239/03/0600-0103/0 °
C 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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104 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

Carstensen & Charles, 1999). Indubitably, there are important individual differ-
ences in self-regulatory capacity in adulthood (Rothbart, Ahadi & Evans, 2000) as
well as age-related physical decline. However, the overall pattern of findings about
emotional experience and regulation points to developmental gains well into the
second half of life.
To be clear, this profile of findings, although highly reliable, emerged only
during the last 10–15 years. Early models of emotion and aging so strongly pre-
sumed the same downward course observed in cognitive and biological aging that
empirical investigation was nearly absent. However, population-based studies of
psychiatric disorders began to reveal lower rates of depression and anxiety in
older adults than in their younger counterparts (George, Blazer, Winfield-Laird,
Leaf, & Fischback, 1988; Regier et al., 1988; Weissman, Leaf, Bruce, & Florio,
1988). Moreover, national and international studies of well-being and life satisfac-
tion found that older people were at least as satisfied with life as younger people
(Diener & Lucas, 1999; Diener & Suh, 1997). As longitudinal studies came of age,
they showed, in multiple cohorts, that the frequency of negative affect decreases
over time whereas positive affect remains markedly stable (Charles, Reynolds, &
Gatz, 2001). With age, older people express fewer worries about finances and social
events (Powers, Wisocki, & Whitbourne, 1992), experience less anger (Schieman,
1999), and have lower levels of emotional distress after natural disasters (e.g.,
Bolin & Klenow, 1982–1983).
Asked directly about emotion regulation, older people representing diverse
groups of people including African and European Americans, Chinese Americans,
Norwegians, and American nuns consistently report better control of negative
emotions than their younger counterparts (Gross et al., 1997). One study that
sampled emotional experiences in day-to-day life found that negative emotions
declined steadily until approximately age 60 (at which point they leveled off), but
age was unrelated to the frequency and intensity of positive emotions (Carstensen,
Pasupathi, Mayr, & Nesselroade, 2000). Another study found modest increases
in positive emotion from middle adulthood to early old age (Mroczek & Kolarz,
1998). Thus, the overall ratio of positive-to-negative emotions gives an optimistic
portrayal of emotion in old age.
Below we elaborate a theoretical model, socioemotional selectivity theory,
which explains these findings in terms of motivation. Socioemotional selectivity
theory maintains that perceived limitations on time lead to motivational shifts that
direct attention to emotionally meaningful goals. The theory posits that increased
attention to emotional goals results in greater complexity of emotional experience
and better regulation of emotions experienced in everyday life. Essentially, when
concerns for the future are less relevant, attention to current feeling-states height-
ens. Appreciation for the fragility and value of human life increases and long-term
relationships with family and friends assume unmatched importance. The theory
contends that when perceived limitations on time are made salient, similar shifts
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 105

are instigated in people as young as adolescents,6 but because of the inextricable

association between age and time left in life, chronological age—on average—is
associated with increased preferences for and investment in emotionally meaning-
ful goals. This age-related motivational shift leads to alterations in the dynamic
interplay between individuals and their environments such that optimization of
emotional experience is prioritized in later life.
Realizing emotional goals—particularly ones embedded in social
relationships—usually demands effective regulation of emotions and the pursuit
of emotionally meaningful goals, typically resulting in behaviors that feel good.
Thus, focusing on overarching goals related to the most important aspects of life
influences emotion regulation at multiple levels. Although it is possible to parse
behavior, motivation, and cognition into discrete component processes for the pur-
poses of study, we believe that in daily life they unfold as a continuous process of
self-regulation.
After overviewing the theory, we describe three life-span changes, all rooted
in motivation, which contribute to improved emotion regulation across adulthood
and into old age. The first concerns antecedent emotion regulation, specifically
the age-related tendency to prioritize emotionally meaningful social partners over
acquaintances and novel social partners. The second concerns response-focused
emotion regulation, namely age-related changes in coping with negative events.
The third concerns the influence that motivation exerts on cognitive processing such
that older people, as compared to their younger counterparts, attend to and better
remember positively valenced over negatively valenced information. In short, mo-
tivational changes instigated by perceived constraints on time left in life activate
both effortful and more automatic strategies that aid emotion regulation.

WHY DOES MOTIVATION CHANGE WITH AGE?

Socioemotional selectivity theory posits that time perspective is integrally

involved in human goal-directed behavior and, more broadly, in human motivation
(Carstensen, 1993; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). The awareness of
time, not just clock time or calendar time, but lifetime, is a fundamental human
characteristic (Carstensen et al., 1999). This universal ability—considered by many
to have been central in the evolution of human consciousness (Suddendorf &
Corballis, 1997)—plays an essential role in motivation. Goals are often set within
temporal contexts, and goal selection depends fundamentally on the perception of
time. Although a reasonably stable set of goals—ranging from physical safety and
sustenance to more psychological goals such as feeling comfortable and gaining

6 Our empirical research suggests that effects of perceived time limitations on prioritization of emotional
goals are evident as early as adolescence. It is possible that younger children too would show similar
responses. However, the age at which children comprehend life cycle time remains unknown.
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106 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

information—motivates behavior throughout life, the perception of time influences

which is adopted.
Socioemotional selectivity theory focuses on two main classes of psycholog-
ical goals: one comprises expansive goals, such as acquiring knowledge or making
new social contacts; the second comprises goals related to feelings, such as bal-
ancing emotional states or sensing that one is needed by others. We acknowledge
that the emotion system is inherent in all goal-directed behaviors whether goals
involve seeking novel information or meaning in life. Approach and avoidance al-
ways involve the affective system (Zajonc, 1984). Subsequently, classifying some
social motives as “emotionally meaningful” and others as “knowledge-related” is,
in some ways, artificial, but the distinction is intended heuristically to distinguish
between goals that are pursued because of the accompanying feelings that ensue,
and goals that are pursued to obtain novel information or experience. For example,
a student may pursue repeated contacts with a crotchety professor, not for the
happiness derived from this interaction, but for the potential long-term payoff. By
contrast, when we chat with our friends because the conversation makes us smile
or feel good about ourselves, the subjective state associated with the behavior is
its own reward.

Role of Time Perspective in Goal Selection

Throughout life, goals vie with one another. Pursuing expansive goals (e.g.,
striking up a conversation with an attractive stranger) can, at times, entail negative
emotions such as anxiety or shame. In contrast, goals related to feeling states
(e.g., phoning a close friend who makes you feel good) usually offer less in the
way of novel information but potentially more in deriving emotional meaning in
life. Theoretically, in situations where goals compete with one another, a principal
mechanism involved in goal selection is time perspective. When time is perceived
as open-ended (as it typically is in youth), expansive goals are pursued. When
boundaries on time are perceived, emotionally meaningful goals are pursued pre-
sumably because the payoff is in the contact itself, not promised at some unspecified
time in the future.7 In short, temporal appraisal allows people to balance long- and
short-term needs in order to adapt effectively to their particular niche in the life
cycle.

Age Differences in Time Perspective

Because mortality places constraints on time, there are reliable age differences
in time perspective. Adults reliably report the sense that time passes more and more
7 Goals sometimes do not compete; for example, working on a particularly meaningful research project
allows an individual to feel good and purposeful while gaining knowledge. In these situations, the
theory predicts that motivation for the behavior would be very high at any age.
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 107

quickly as they age (Kennedy, Fung, & Carstensen, 2001). Empirical evidence
suggests that across the wide age range from 20 to 90 years, a linear trend is found
such that older adults foresee a relatively more limited future than do younger
adults, even after controlling for health (Lang & Carstensen, 2002). Throughout
life, but especially in adulthood, a variety of events provide subtle and not so
subtle reminders that time is passing by. For many people, experiencing a chronic
illness such as high blood pressure, or experiencing osteoarthritis for the first
time, heightens awareness of one’s own mortality (Charles & Carstensen, 1999).
Similarly, the increasingly frequent deaths of friends or family members heighten
awareness of one’s own mortality. More benign events too remind us that time in
life is not infinite. Watching a child graduate from high school or seeing her marry
also brings into consciousness the fact that time is passing.

Age Differences in Goals

Since age is strongly associated with time perspective (Fung, Lai, & Ng, 2001;
Lang & Carstensen, 2002), the theory posits clear developmental trajectories for
emotional and knowledge-related goals. Early in life, time is typically perceived
as expansive and people are motivated to prepare for a long and unknown future.
With this future orientation, developing organisms allocate considerable resources
to obtaining knowledge and developing new skills, and are motivated to do so par-
ticularly when knowledge is limited. Because knowledge striving is so important
from late adolescence to middle adulthood, it is pursued relentlessly even at the cost
of emotional satisfaction. In contrast, older people see fewer opportunities awaiting
them and less time available to obtain and benefit from purely knowledge-related
goals. Developmentally, the knowledge trajectory starts high during the early years
of life and declines gradually over the life course as knowledge accrues and the
future for which it is banked grows ever shorter.
Unlike knowledge-related goals, emotional goals follow a curvilinear tra-
jectory. Socioemotional selectivity theory acknowledges that emotional needs are
important throughout life, but posits that their relative salience among the con-
stellation of social motives changes with age. The emotion trajectory is highest
during infancy and early childhood when emotional trust and relatedness are ini-
tially established and rises again in old age when future-oriented strivings are less
relevant. As people age, they realize that time, in a sense, is “running out,” and
begin to focus on the present as opposed to the future. Goals that are satisfied by the
resulting feeling states are more likely to be pursued because they are experienced
immediately, a valuable commodity in the face of limited time. Subsequently, as
people realize that they are gradually approaching the end of life, they care more
about experiencing meaningful social ties and less about expanding their horizons.
This motivational shift leads to a greater investment in the quality of important
social relationships and a generally enhanced appreciation of life.
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108 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

Resulting emotions are not purely positive; characterizing old age as “happy”
does not do justice to the complex emotional states entailed in deriving meaning
from life. One older couple wrote in a letter to Ann Landers, “When we are old,
the young are kinder to us and we are kinder to each other. There is a sunset glow
that radiates from our faces and is reflected on the faces of those about us. But
still, it is sunset” (Bliven & Bliven, Letter to Ann Landers, December 13, 1995).
What characterizes old age is not hedonism, but a desire to derive meaning and
satisfaction from life. On balance, however, emotional states are more positive than
negative. There is a quality of savoring the time left as opposed to fearing the end.
In addition, goals also influence subconscious processes by directing attention
and encoding processes. Thus, socioemotional selectivity theory contends that
motivational shifts affect cognitive processing (Isaacowitz, Charles, & Carstensen,
2000). When emotion regulation is prioritized, people attend to the positive, forget
the negative, and focus on present experience.
One final note of clarification: In no way does the theory speak against in-
dividual differences, nor is it intended to account for all age-related changes in
emotional experience. For one, there are individual differences in time perspec-
tive. Young gang members often report that they do not expect to live to adulthood
(Carstensen et al., 1999); and although young men living with the HIV virus show
similar motivational shifts as very old people do (a point to which we return below),
they are relatively less effective at optimizing emotional experience (Carstensen &
Fredrickson, 1998). There is no doubt that experience plays a central role in im-
provements in emotion regulation across the life course, and every reason to think
that experience is largely beneficial. Importantly, there are also differences in indi-
vidual maturation (Labouvie-Vief & Blanchard-Fields, 1982) and social resources
(Isaacowitz, Smith, & Carstensen, in press) that influence whether people are able
to obtain emotionally meaningful goals. Obviously, not all people achieve the rel-
atively positive outcomes predicted by the theory. As we describe below, however,
age differences in emotional experience and emotional regulation are sufficiently
robust and reliable as to suggest developmental (i.e., normative) advance.

ANTECEDENT EMOTION REGULATION: PROACTIVELY

CONSTRUCTING THE SOCIAL WORLD

Antecedent emotion regulation refers to the process of proactively avoiding

negative emotions. Regulating social contacts is among the most effective an-
tecedent regulation strategies (Carstensen, Gross, & Fung, 1997). Age-associated
changes in social network composition, and the emotional experience derived from
social interactions, suggest that older adults structure their social worlds to opti-
mize emotionally meaningful, and therefore gratifying, experiences and to avoid
potentially negative interchanges. Age-related reductions in social contact have
been widely documented in both longitudinal (Lee & Markides, 1990; Palmore,
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 109

1981) and cross-sectional studies (Cumming & Henry, 1961; Lawton, Moss, &
Fulcomer, 1987). Older people interact less with others and appear to resist efforts
by others to make new friends (Carstensen, 1986). Because social support is related
positively to affective well-being, at first glance, this reduction in social network
size seems at odds with improved emotion regulation. Researchers have found that
social relationships are vital for affective well-being among older adults, but the
type of social interaction is the critical factor. Overall rates of interaction fail to
predict satisfaction in old age (Chappel & Badger, 1989; Lee & Markides, 1990)
but social connectedness clearly predicts mental health (Antonucci & Jackson,
1987; Lowenthal & Haven, 1968).

Age Differences in Social Network Composition

Empirical evidence suggests that the age-associated reduction in social con-

tacts is a selective pruning process that maintains emotionally meaningful re-
lationships and discards less important and potentially unpleasant ones. Studies
of German, European American, and African American samples document that
older adults, relative to their younger counterparts, have smaller social networks.
Importantly these smaller networks are disproportionately composed of emotion-
ally close social partners (Fung, Carstensen, & Lang, 2001; Lang & Carstensen,
1994; Lang, Staudinger, & Carstensen, 1998). These age-related patterns are not
accounted for by personality (Lang et al., 1998) or selective mortality (Fung
et al., 2001; Lang & Carstensen, 1994). Especially compelling is longitudinal
evidence based on interview data that shows adults intentionally cull peripheral
social partners from their networks (Lang, 2000).
Studies suggest that this age-associated reduction in peripheral social partners
is beneficial to affective well-being. A longitudinal analysis assessing participants’
frequency of contact and satisfaction with various types of social partners at ages
18, 30, 40, and 50 years revealed that both rates of interaction with acquaintances
and the satisfaction derived from them declines from early to middle adulthood
(Carstensen, 1992). Across the same period, interaction rates among emotionally
close social partners—spouses, parents, and siblings—is maintained or increased,
as is the satisfaction they engender. Average emotional closeness of social networks
is positively related to social embeddedness, operationalized in our work by a
composite index of self-reported social satisfaction, tenderness, and the absence
of loneliness (Lang et al., 1998; Lang & Carstensen, 1994).
In summary, age is related to social network composition. Older people do
have smaller social networks, but the decrease in size is due to a reduction in the
most peripheral social partners. Consequently, the networks of older people are
composed primarily of well-known and emotionally close social partners. Studies
have shown that older people are not only satisfied with their social networks, they
also appear to be actively involved in constituting them.
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110 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

Age Differences in Social Preferences

We reason from socioemotional selectivity theory that different types of so-

cial partners serve different functions and that time perspective may be involved
in these preferences. When knowledge-related goals are accentuated, novel social
partners are most appealing, because their unfamiliarity increases the likelihood
that an individual will gain new information. When emotional goals assume pri-
macy, emotionally close social partners, as opposed to strangers, are preferred
because they are more likely to provide emotionally meaningful social experi-
ences and feelings of social connectedness. Our research team has conducted a
series of studies examining age differences in social partner preferences, includ-
ing participants from diverse cultures, including the United States (Fredrickson &
Carstensen, 1990), Hong Kong (Fung, Carstensen, & Lutz, 1999, Studies 2 & 4),
Taiwan, and Mainland China (Fung et al., 2001). In each of these studies, par-
ticipants were asked to imagine that they had half an hour free with no pressing
commitments and to choose one from among three potential social partners. Op-
tions were8 (1) a member of your immediate family, (2) the author of a book
you have read, and (3) an acquaintance with whom you seem to have much in
common. These three prospective social partners were selected because they ser-
vice different goals related, respectively, to deriving emotional meaning, gaining
information, and expanding social horizons. In every one of these studies, when
simply asked about their preferences, older adults but not their younger counter-
parts show a strong preference for spending time with emotionally close social
partners.

Role of Time Perspective in Social Preferences

Important exceptions occur when time perspective is altered, in either hy-

pothetical or actual situations. When asked to imagine that a recent medical ad-
vance virtually insured their active life span would be extended 20 years longer
than anticipated, older adults show an increased preference for novel social part-
ners (Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990). And younger adults, asked to imagine
an impending move, show social partner preferences for emotionally close social
partners indistinguishable from those of older adults (Fredrickson & Carstensen,
1990; Fung et al., 1999). Outside of the laboratory, this phenomenon has been
observed in more ecologically valid paradigms. Macrolevel sociopolitical end-
ings also instigate shifts in social preferences. When Hong Kong was returned
from British rule to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, there was a widely
held view among the people of Hong Kong that the return represented the end to

8 An alternate set of social partner options, featuring “an old friend,” “a friendly new
roommate/housemate,” “a famous person you admire,” shows the same pattern of results.
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 111

Hong Kong as they knew it. Calendars that marked the number of days until the
transition were popular and political commentaries featured cartoons suggesting
the end of Hong Kong. One year prior to the handover, we asked Hong Kong
citizens to choose from among three potential social partners and found the same
age differences we had observed in U.S. samples. Older people showed a strong
preference for emotionally close social partners but younger people did not. Two
months prior to the handover, as the ending approached, younger adults exhibited
the same bias for well-known social partners as seen among older adults. Inter-
estingly, the increased preference among young respondents disappeared after the
peaceful handover had occurred, which one woman characterized as the “rebirth of
Hong Kong” (Fung et al., 1999). There is considerable anecdotal evidence that in
the United States, September 11, 2001, functioned as a powerful “endings” prime
and that people’s goals changed such that emotionally close social partners were
preferred and emotionally meaningful goals pursued.
Of course, close social partners provide benefits beyond emotionally mean-
ingful interactions. Spending time with a family member may fulfill personal and
cultural demands of familial obligation, offer a sense of continuity in one’s life, or
provide comfort during difficult times. We have been particularly interested in two
alternative explanations for the pattern of findings described previously, namely,
(1) emotional goals are pursued by people who perceived time as limited only
because nonemotional goals are blocked and (2) emotional goals are pursued in
search of comfort rather than emotional meaning. Fung and Carstensen (2002a)
tested these alternatives by systematically examining social goals in response to
blocked goals and foreshortened time. Findings reveal motivational patterns in
response to blocked goals distinct from ones related to constraints on time. While
both types of constraints are associated with an increased preference for close so-
cial partners, constraints on time have an independent effect. Moreover, although
both types of constraints motivate people to seek comfort, only constraints on time
heighten the desire for emotional meaning in relationships.

Social Preferences and Emotion Regulation

Although emotionally meaningful social interactions are, more often than not,
positive, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that social networks also provide
the context for strong negative emotions (Rook, 2001). For most people, both the
greatest joys and the greatest sorrows occur in the context of close relationships.
Thus, network composition has important implications for emotional experience.
Because older people have more emotionally dense social networks, we argue that
they are more conducive to positive emotional experience and that in this context
even negative emotions can be accompanied by positive emotions. A grandfather
who talks to his beloved grandson about the boy’s problems, for example, would
likely experience negative emotions during the conversation. But, the grandfather
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112 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

may also find the conversation meaningful and his relationship with his grandson
strengthened as a result.
Of course, for some people, social networks offer little opportunity for posi-
tive exchanges and are negatively emotionally charged. In such cases, age-related
shifts that prioritize emotional meaning may be frustrated by the lack of opportu-
nity to find it. We recently studied two groups of survivors of traumatic historical
events who are now older: Holocaust survivors and Japanese internment camp
survivors. The groups are distinguished in many important ways, of course. One
way concerns the level of residual distress. Among Holocaust survivors estimates
of posttraumatic stress disorder are roughly 50%. Among Japanese internment
camp survivors, rates are far lower. Holocaust survivors also tend to have so-
cial networks composed of other survivors. Japanese internment camp survivors,
having made special efforts to integrate into the broader society, have more di-
verse social networks. Both of these groups, as well as our comparison groups of
American Jews and American Protestants, displayed social selection. Networks
of these older people were composed primarily of familiar, emotionally close so-
cial partners. However, among Holocaust survivors selectivity was associated with
negative affect, whereas survivors who do not show selectivity had more positive
affect. All other groups showed positive associations with selectivity. Thus, when
individuals are highly distressed and their networks are comprised by similarly
distressed other people, it may not be adaptive for social networks to grow even
smaller and more selective9 (Isaacowitz et al., in press).
The sense that time is limited, particularly in the context of social rela-
tionships, may also explain why emotion regulation among older adults is not
characterized by hedonism, but rather by a complex mix of positive and neg-
ative emotions. A sense that each good-bye kiss may be the last creates more
complex, poignant, and deeply gratifying emotional experiences. Even a happy
event, such as attending a family reunion, may become bittersweet by the real-
ization that it may be the last one. Under conditions where social endings are
made salient, younger adults also experience mixed emotions. University students
report both happiness and sadness while watching Life is Beautiful, a film that
shows a father’s often-comic attempts to keep his son unaware of their plight in a
concentration camp, and ends with the death of the father but the son’s freedom.
College students also experience both happiness and sadness when they face social
endings in their own lives, such as graduation from college (Larson, McGraw, &
Cacioppo, 2001). Because age is highly correlated with time perspective, older
adults are more likely to experience these mixed emotions than are younger
adults. Indeed, a study based on experience sampling shows that increasingly
9 We argue that in most cases, even negative exchanges can be emotionally meaningful in the context
of a close relationship, and an individual under perceived time constraints is likely to find such
exchanges preferable to similarly negative exchanges with peripheral social partners. However, in
cases when close relationships are the sources of considerable distress, selecting those relationships
can be maladaptive.
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 113

older ages are associated with increasing emotional complexity, for example, the
simultaneous experience of both positive and negative emotions (Carstensen et al.,
2000).

RESPONSE-FOCUSED EMOTION REGULATION: WHEN BAD

THINGS HAPPEN

The increased importance of emotional goals may be one reason why older
adults use coping strategies primarily aimed at regulating emotion states more
so than younger adults. Older adults do use both problem- and emotion-focused
strategies when confronted with problems and are more flexible in their problem-
solving strategies than are younger adults (Blanchard-Fields, Chen, & Norris,
1997). However, older adults choose emotion-focused strategies when problems
are emotionally charged and highly salient. Research suggests that they do so
to preserve harmony in their surroundings (Blanchard-Fields et al., 1997) and to
regulate their own emotional experience (Heckhausen & Krueger, 1993).
Moreover, older people engage in relatively more downward and less upward
social comparison than do their younger counterparts (Heckhausen & Krueger,
1993). Whereas upward social comparison motivates future goal strivings, down-
ward social comparison better serves emotion regulation. The emotion regulatory
benefits of downward comparison are apparent in ratings of self-perceived health;
ratings of health generally are more positive when older adults rate their health
compared to others of their age than when they rate their health in general (Roberts,
1999).
In addition to downward comparison, older adults often use cognitive strate-
gies that focus on positive aspects of an outcome or that distance themselves from
negative emotions. Labouvie-Vief, DeVoe, and Bulka (1989) argue that cognitive
maturity is associated with improvements in cognitive reappraisal, and older adults
display this cognitive maturity to a greater degree than younger adults (Labouvie-
Vief & Blanchard-Fields, 1982). Flexible goal adjustment measured by items like
“I usually find something positive even after giving up something I cherish” in-
creases from young to old age (Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990; Heckhausen &
Schulz, 1995). When faced with highly emotional hypothetical situations, older
adults adopt emotion-focused strategies such as “learn to live with infrequent vis-
its” more often than younger adults (Blanchard-Fields, Jahnke, & Camp, 1995).
Older people also endorse statements that suggest less engagement in some emo-
tional experiences (Lawton, Kleban, Rajagopal, & Dean, 1992). Across a variety
of stressful contexts, older people report less confrontative coping, and greater
distancing and positive reappraisal, than do younger people (Folkman, Lazarus,
Pimley, & Novacek, 1987), a strategy which may help to “short circuit the stress
process, so that incidents that might otherwise have been hassles [are] neutralized”
(Folkman et al., 1987, p. 182).
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114 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

Role of Time Perspective in Coping

As in antecedent emotion regulation, a limited time perspective may also

account for the above age-related increase in emotion-focused coping. Lazarus
(1991) emphasizes the importance of choosing appropriate coping strategies on
the basis of the type of problem faced, and time perspective often changes the
relevance of a problem and problem-solving options. One may argue that for people
who have a long and ambiguous future, emotion-focused coping is not adaptive,
because it distracts the individual from employing direct measures to remove a
stressor once and for all. The stressor is still there and may continue to plague the
individual in the future. In contrast, for people who perceive time as more limited,
the future seems less relevant and emotional meaning becomes more important.
The strategy of focusing on emotions to handle stress may thus be used more
often, and lead to more positive psychological outcomes. Indeed, younger people
faced with terminal illnesses—who presumably perceive time as more limited—
are also more likely to rely on emotion-focused coping strategies than their healthy
peers (Kausar & Akram, 1999) and finding personal meaning in a life-threatening
illness slows disease progression (Taylor, Kemeny, Reed, Bower, & Gruenewald,
2000). Research with younger adults further suggests that emotion-focused coping
is positively related to meaning and peace in life only among people with a more
limited time perspective (Fung, Mcewan, & Kuiken, 2001).

Coping and Emotion Regulation

Relying on emotion-focused strategies and employing positive reappraisal

and distancing may contribute to older adults greater sense of control over their
emotions (Gross et al., 1997; Lawton et al., 1992). This age difference in emotional
control may help to explain why, despite the inevitable losses encountered in
old age, older adults nonetheless report high levels of life satisfaction and less
loneliness than younger adults (Diener & Suh, 1997; Herzog & Rodgers, 1981),
not to mention the fact that—with the exception of the dementias—older people
have lower rates of mental health problems than their younger counterparts (Regier
et al., 1988; Weissman et al., 1988).
Studies of emotion regulation under more naturalistic conditions provide
additional evidence for age-associated improvement in emotion regulation. Find-
ings from the experience sampling study mentioned previously indicate that the
intensity of negative emotion experienced is similar across age; once a negative
mood state is experienced, however older adults are quicker to return to more posi-
tive states than are younger people (Carstensen et al., 2000). An observational study
of older married couples sheds some light on possible emotion-regulatory strate-
gies older people use to reduce negative experience. When discussing a conflict in
their relationship, older couples, as compared to their middle-aged counterparts,
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 115

exhibit less physiological reactivity (Levenson, Carstensen, & Gottman, 1994)

and express less anger, belligerence, disgust, and more affection with one another
(Carstensen, Gottman, & Levenson, 1995). This is true for happily and unhappily
married couples and the effect remains even after controlling for severity of the
conflict discussed. Thus, older people not only prioritize emotionally meaningful
goals, such as maintaining high-quality relationships, they also appear to be more
skilled at managing emotionally charged interactions.

EMOTIONALLY MEANINGFUL GOALS AFFECT

COGNITIVE PROCESSING

Studies of both antecedent and response-focused emotion regulation reveal

benefits of age, benefits that socioemotional selectivity theory maintains are largely
due to shifts in time perspective. These shifts also affect cognitive processing. As
Zajonc (1997) has argued, even basic cognitive processes, such as categorization,
reflect dimensions of life that matter. Without affective relevance, then, cognitive
processes would not exist.

Mental Representation of Social Partners

Following from such logic, Fredrickson and Carstensen (1990) studied men-
tal representations of social partners in older and younger adults. Of interest were
the dimensions that people used to categorize others and the relative weight placed
on the dimensions by younger and older adults. Research participants who ranged
from adolescents to octogenarians sorted a set of 18 prospective social partners
according to the perceived similarity between these social partners. Then multidi-
mensional scaling techniques were employed to explore the cognitive dimensions
that participants used to make such judgments and the relative weights placed on
each dimension by different age groups. Three dimensions accounted for most of
the variance in the mathematical solution: an emotional or “like–dislike” dimen-
sion, an informational dimension, and a dimension characterized by future possi-
bilities. Older people weighted the emotional dimension most heavily, followed by
middle-aged and younger people. In a subsequent study, a sample of young men
was examined (Carstensen & Fredrickson, 1998). All of the men were gay, some
were HIV-negative, some HIV-positive but asymptomatic and some HIV-positive
and symptomatic. The men who were HIV-positive and symptomatic—actuarially
closest to the end of their lives—weighted the emotional dimension most heavily
performing the card sorts indistinguishably from older people. Once again, these
findings suggest that closeness to the end of life, not chronological age, leads to the
motivational shift posited in socioemotional selectivity theory, even as reflected in
areas that are under less conscious control, such as cognitive processing.
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116 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

Cognitive Evaluations of Social Partners

Evaluations of others also vary by age. Interestingly, in the case of evaluating

hypothetical others, older adults weigh negative information more heavily than
positive, an age difference that is particularly strong when the information is later
counterbalanced by positive information about the same person (Hess & Pullen,
1994). Younger people modify their views in light of the positive information.
Older people do not. The pattern is most evident when the information provided
focuses on characteristics concerning morality, such as honesty, as opposed to
ability, for example, intelligence (Hess, Bolstad, Woodburn, & Auman, 1999). We
interpret this exception to a general tendency to focus on the positive—a point to
which we return below—as reflecting the tendency to assess prospective partners
cautiously in order to proactively avoid negative interactions.

Memory

Although rarely conceptualized as a self-regulatory process, the events, peo-

ple, and places that individuals retrieve from memory clearly influence well-being.
And, of course, memory itself is not simply a process of retrieval, but an elabora-
tive process by which current goals influence constructions of the past (Johnson &
Sherman, 1990). Socioemotional selectivity theory posits that the age-associated
motivational shift towards emotional goals extends beyond conscious preferences.
When emotional goals are prioritized, emotional material is attended to, weighed
more heavily, processed more deeply, and better remembered than nonemotional
material.
Such an age-associated focus on emotional information has been found on a
number of memory tasks. Using an incidental memory paradigm, people aged 20–
83 years read a narrative drawn from a popular novel and were later asked to recall as
much as they could from the passage. Of what people remembered, the proportion
of recalled emotional information, as opposed to neutral information, increased
with each successively older age group (Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994). More-
over, in a study asking people to describe a past vacation, older couples provided
more information on the subjective aspects, such as descriptions of people, and less
information on the factual aspects, such as itineraries, than did younger couples
(Gould & Dixon, 1993). Similarly, in a source memory paradigm, younger people
recalled more sensory and perceptual details about imagined and real experiences,
but older adults recalled a greater number of feelings and evaluative statements
(Hashtroudi, Johnson, & Chrosniak, 1990). When memory for music was exam-
ined, older adults rated songs from their youth as more emotional and remembered
those songs better than younger adults (Schulkind, Hennis, & Rubin, 1999). Older
people were also more likely to remember advertisements with emotional slogans
like “Capture those special moments” more than information-related slogans like
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 117

“Capture the unexplored world.” They also preferred the emotional framing of the
advertisements more so than younger adults (Fung & Carstensen, 2000b).
Because decline in attention and working memory have been well-established
in older adults, it is conceivable that decreased cognitive control (see Jennings &
Jacoby, 1993) and/or disinhibition (Hasher, Zacks, & May, 1999) play a role. That
is, emotional disinhibition could interfere with the retrieval of other types of infor-
mation. Emotional memories flood output, not because it is more highly prioritized
but because it cannot be inhibited. Memory difficulties could also lead people to
rely more heavily on gist memory, which tends to be more affectively laden (e.g.,
remembering it was a good party but few of the details of the party.) Indeed, as
mentioned previously, studies of source monitoring reveal that older adults are less
accurate in their source memory and recall fewer perceptual details than younger
adults (Hashtroudi et al., 1990). However, differential memory for positive relative
and negative information speaks against global age inhibitory deficits. The type of
emotional information recalled is disproportionately positive. Such memory is
likely to optimize emotional experience by reducing regret and increasing satisfac-
tion with past decisions. When recalling previously presented positive, negative,
and neutral images, the proportion of correctly recognized and recalled negative
images declines linearly with age across younger, middle-aged, and older adults
(Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003). Another alternative explanation for dis-
proportionately positive memories concerns mood congruence. That is, the causal
link may be reversed: Older people may remember more positive information sim-
ply because (for whatever reasons) they are in better moods. However, studies
that control for current mood speak against this explanation. Controlling for mood
does not change the pattern of age-related declines in memory for negative images
reported above (Charles et al., 2003).
The age difference in memory extends to autobiographical memory as well.
Older age is related to a tendency to underestimate the intensity of sadness experi-
enced in the past (Levine & Bluck, 1997). In addition, older adults are more likely
to cite a positive episode when asked to recall the single most important experience
in their moral development than are adolescents and young adults (Quackenbush &
Barnett, 2001). In a longitudinal study, asking people to recall their childhood at
different points in their lives, memories became increasingly positive with age
(Field, 1981). This reduction of negative events and resulting increased emphasis
on positive events may be one reason why reminiscence—the process of recalling
personal memories—is experienced more positively for older than younger adults
(Pasupathi & Carstensen, in press).

Attention

Although age may influence memory for emotional material on multiple

levels—from encoding to retrieval, recent evidence suggests that attentional
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118 Carstensen, Fung, and Charles

processes play a role in the age-related decrease in emphasis on negative informa-

tion. In one study, participants saw a pair of faces, one emotional (happy, sad, or
angry) and one neutral. Afterwards, a dot probe appeared on the screen, and par-
ticipants were asked to indicate by pressing a button which side of the screen the
dot appeared. Attention was indexed by the speed of response. Faster responses
indicate that the participant was already oriented to the face on the side of the
screen where the dot appeared. Older participants, but not younger, were faster
to respond to dot probes that appeared behind happy faces, suggesting that they
were drawn to the happy faces. They were also given a memory task for the faces.
Results indicate an age interaction, such that older adults attended to negative
faces the least and remembered positive faces better than negative faces than did
the younger adults (Mather & Carstensen, in press).

CONCLUSION

Old age is frequently portrayed as a time of ubiquitous decline, but empirical

evidence suggests that emotion regulation represents one domain where adults
experience stable, if not enhanced, abilities well into old age. Socioemotional
selectivity theory posits that time perspective is largely responsible for shifts in the
importance of emotional goals, and that the effects influence social and cognitive
domains. Research has supported the theory, finding that older adults selectively
reduce social networks such that they comprise primarily emotionally close social
partners, and that they prefer and derive greater satisfaction from experiences
with these partners. Older adults also disproportionately remember emotional,
particularly positive, information relative to younger adults. Even autobiographical
memories become increasingly positive over time.
Older adults use regulatory strategies that emphasize emotional states and
these strategies tend to work effectively. Older adults report high levels of well-
being, and experience equal if not more positive affect and less negative affect than
their younger counterparts. Importantly, when younger adults are faced with con-
ditions that limit time, such as geographical moves or serious illnesses, they also
prefer emotionally close social partners and exhibit greater reliance on emotion-
focused coping strategies than younger people holding more expansive time per-
spectives.
Theory and research clearly illustrate that there are gains and losses at ev-
ery stage of development (Baltes, 1987). Having fewer social partners and poorer
memory, for example, is frequently described as losses that are inherent and uni-
directional in the aging process. Yet, through them come emotional gains: Social
networks become tighter and more emotionally close, and the information that
older adults remember is relatively more positive and emotionally meaningful.
In fact, the empirical evidence we outlined above suggests that emotional reg-
ulation in the second half of life is characterized by an age-related increase in
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Socioemotional Selectivity Theory 119

selection, a fundamental principle of human development (Baltes, 1997). Rather

than “spreading themselves thin” by holding on to the large social networks and
detail-rich memory that once served them well when they were younger, aging
individuals selectively construct a social and cognitive world that maximizes emo-
tional payoffs. Perhaps young organisms are adaptively motivated to learn all sorts
of information and, although unspecialized, their facility for new learning is great.
With age, organisms become more specialized and less open. Even at the neu-
ral level, evidence for the gains and losses associated with selection is evident.
Increased canalization of neural pathways and specialization at the cellular level
are necessary for learning. At the same time, the development of alternate path-
ways and cell differentiation limit new learning. The process occurs at all levels
(Baltes & Carstensen, 2002). Learning one language limits the ability to learn a
second. Investing in one emotionally close social partner limits time and interest
in others.
The finding that age differences can be shifted by changing time perspective
provides support for the cardinal principle in developmental psychology: age itself
is not an explanatory variable (Wohlwill, 1970). Efforts to understand life-span de-
velopment would benefit from studying the motivational mechanisms that underlie
the influence of age and specific life events on behaviors. For example, shifts in
time perspective may represent a common mechanism that accounts for the effects
of seemingly different life events, such as graduation, job relocation, and having
a terminal illness. Socioemotional selectivity theory and related research suggest
that individuals under these life contexts are all likely to perceive time as limited
and consequently focus on emotional goals.
Finally, findings that older adults proactively drop peripheral social partners
from their social networks and turn their attention away from negative stimuli
suggest that people are not passive responders to the aging process. Although many
physical and sociological changes associated with aging exert negative influences
on individuals, individuals also exercise agency (Bandura, 1982) and shape their
environments in ways that fulfill the goals that they value most highly, maximizing
life satisfaction and maintaining a high level of emotional well-being.
Jeanne Calment was the oldest person in the world until her death in 1997, at
the age of 122. She had been interviewed at the age of 120, and was asked what
sort of a future she anticipated. She responded, “A very short one.” Accumulating
evidence seems to suggest that it is precisely a sense of anticipated ending that
makes old age emotionally meaningful. When emotional goals weigh more heavily
than knowledge-related goals, people have the time to savor the moment, focus on
the present, and derive emotional meaning from in their lives.

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