Adult age differences in the perception of emotions from written vignettes Isabel Huebner, Louise Ph

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Adult age differences in the perception of
emotions from written vignettesIsabel Huebner,
Louise Phillips Roy Allen. School of
Psychology, University of Aberdeen. Funded by a
BPS Undergraduate Research Assistantship grant to
Isabel Huebner.
BACKGROUND AGE DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTION OF
EMOTIONS Previous studies have suggested that
there may be age differences in understanding
feelings from written stories with older adults
showing a declining ability to identify emotional
cues. However, the stories used previously have
varied both in complexity, and the nature and
intensity of emotions portrayed. In this pilot
project, age differences in the perceived nature
and intensity of primary and secondary emotions,
both positive and negative, were investigated in
a wide range of written vignettes.
METHOD Participants ten young (aged 20-40), ten
middle-aged (aged 40-60) and ten older (aged
60-80) adults. Task 26 stories describing
emotions, used in previous neuropsychological
studies, were presented (see examples below).
Participants were asked to indicate the emotions
that the protagonist was feeling, in terms of the
presence or absence of six primary emotions
(positive happiness, excitement and pleasure
negative anger, fear and sadness) and six
secondary emotions (positive affection and
hope, negative disappointment, embarrassment,
guilt and resentment). Where an emotion was
present, participants were asked to rate the
intensity of the emotion on a 9-point rating
scale. For analysis, emotions were combined
across all 26 stories
Example rated as high in Secondary
Emotions Samantha is having a party to celebrate
her birthday at the weekend. Her next-door
neighbour, who Samantha does not like, has
complained in the past when Samantha has played
loud music, so Samantha decides to warn her about
the party. When she sees her neighbour Samantha
says "I'm glad I saw you, I just wanted to let
you know that I'm having a party on Saturday
night, it should finish quite early." Her
neighbour replies "Oh thank you so much, I would
love to come". Indicate the emotion(s) that
Samantha was feeling.
Example rated as high in Primary Emotions Sylvia
had never done anything really exciting in her
life. One day she decided she had to do something
exciting so she enrolled in a class for
parachuting. Today is the day that she will make
her first jump. She and her class are seated in
the plane as it reaches the right altitude for
parachute jumping. The instructor calls her name.
It is her turn to jump. She refuses to leave her
seat. Indicate the emotion(s) that Sylvia was
feeling.
RESULTS Figures showing significant age
differences in attribution of emotions to
vignettes are shown below.
DISCUSSION In this small pilot sample, few age
differences in the attribution of emotions to
protagonists in stories were found. Younger
adults were more likely to attribute some primary
and secondary emotions to the stories, and this
applied to both some positive (happiness,
affection) and negative (fear) aspects of
emotion. The finding that older adults attributed
a higher intensity of embarrassment to stories
compared to young was surprising and might be
indicative of age differences in social
sensitivity. The results also enabled
classification of each story as presenting mainly
primary or secondary, and positive or negative
emotions. This will be extremely useful to select
the most appropriate stories for use in a future
study in which a larger sample of adults, varying
in age, will interpret the emotions and mental
states of protagonists in the stories.