Sustained stress reduces the age advantages in emotional experience of older adults

Older age is characterised by more positive and less negative emotional experience, known as the age advantages. Recent work by Carstensen et al. (2020) demonstrated that the age advantages persist during the COVID-19 pandemic. In two studies, we replicate and extend this work. In Study 1, we provide a large-scale test of the robustness of Carstensen and colleagues’ findings, using data from 23,350 participants in 63 countries. Our results demonstrate the persistence of the age advantages during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Study 2, we provide a direct comparison of the age advantages before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic in a longitudinal study (N = 1,629). We show that the age advantages were reduced during the pandemic. These findings support theoretical proposals that the age advantages reflect older adults’ ability to avoid situations that are likely to cause negative emotions, which is challenging under conditions of sustained unavoidable stress (Charles, 2010).