The stories we tell: how age, gender, and forgiveness affect the emotional content of autobiographical narratives.

OBJECTIVES: Researchers have been attempting to understand the variables that predict differences in autobiographical narratives, given that these differences often reveal important information about the psychological characteristics of the person providing the narrative. METHOD: A sample of young adults (n = 80) and older adults (n = 80) completed a battery of self-report measures in addition to an autobiographical narrative task in which they described a negative emotional experience. These narratives were transcribed and entered into a text analysis program. RESULTS: Results indicated a significant three-way interaction (age × gender × forgiveness) for negative emotion words. Results also indicated two significant two-way interactions (age × forgiveness and gender × forgiveness) and one significant main effect for anger words. There were no significant findings related to anxiety or sad words. DISCUSSION: Results are discussed in the context of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, which asserts that social and emotional goals shift throughout the lifespan such that older adults are more motivated to regulate their emotions than young adults. Clinical applications and future directions are discussed.

Physiological reactivity during autobiographical narratives in older adults: the roles of depression and anxiety.

OBJECTIVES: Physiological reactivity (PR) describes the change in physiological functioning (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, pulse pressure) that occurs after the induction of a stressful task. This study aims to understand the influence of mental health symptoms on patterns of PR during autobiographical narratives in an older adult sample. METHOD: Eighty older adults completed self-report measures regarding their symptoms of depression and anxiety. Next, their blood pressure was recorded while they completed two verbal autobiographical narratives. RESULTS: During the positive narrative, anxiety was positively associated with increased PR while depression was negatively associated with PR. During the negative narrative, a significant interaction occurred whereby anxiety was significantly positively associated with PR for those participants low in depression. DISCUSSION: The above results are explained in the context of the Tripartite Model of Depression and Anxiety, which predicts different patterns of PR as a function of mental health symptoms. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Sensation seeking indirectly affects perceptions of risk for co-occurrent substance use.

High sensation seekers engage in more frequent substance use and perceive a host of potentially dangerous activities as less risky than do low sensation seekers. However, despite a plethora of research on these topics, no study has examined the extent to which personal substance use mediates the association between sensation seeking and perceived risk of substance use. To address this question, we recruited a sample of 79 young adults (mean age=19.1 years, standard deviation=1.4). Participants completed questionnaire measures of sensation seeking, substance use, and perceived risk of co-occurrent substance use. Results from path-analytic modeling indicated that both alcohol use and marijuana use mediated the influence of sensation seeking on perceptions of risk for moderately risky, but not highly risky, pairs of substances. Strengths and limitations of the present study were discussed and directions for future research were suggested.