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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3386
igaa057.3386
Abstracts
Session 10360 (Late Breaking Poster)
Research Methods and Issues: Quantitative
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Emotional Complexity In Daily Life: On The Role Of Emotional Dynamics, Age, & Culture
Choi Yoonseok 1 Lay Jennifer 2 Lu Minjie 3 Fung Helene 4 Hoppmann Christiane 1 1 
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2 
University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom
3 
Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
4 
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, China
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”922 923
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Emotional complexity is a construct that has attracted significant interest in the aging literature. It often refers to two aspects — the co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions and emotion differentiation (experiencing emotions with specificity). Emotional complexity is thought to increase with aging. However, recent research points to inconsistent results showing a positive relationship between age and emotional complexity, non-significant associations and even negative relationships. The present study seeks to address this inconsistency in findings by examining three possible sources: 1) different indicators of emotional complexity, 2) age differences in emotional dynamics (individual differences in means & variability of momentary positive & negative emotions), and 3) differences in cultural backgrounds. Community-dwelling adults from Vancouver (96 older adults, 51 young adults; 56% of Asian heritage, 30% of Caucasian heritage, and others 14%) and in Hong Kong (56 older adults, 59 young adults; 100% Asian heritage) completed approximately 30 ecological momentary assessments over a 10-day period assessing their current emotional experiences. When the mean and variability of emotional experiences were controlled for, most emotional complexity measures showed a negative relationship with age indicating that older adults displayed lower emotional complexity compared to young adults. This pattern was consistent across participants of Asian and Caucasian heritage. Additional analyses will explore the link between different emotional complexity measures and well-being indicators. Our findings point to the need to provide a more nuanced perspective on the correlates and consequences of emotional complexity in old age.