Take this 2-minute test: Are you a glass-half-full type? Or a grumpy old you-know-what?
Take a look at these images and think of a word that describes the emotion that they cause you to feel.
If you’re sitting next to someone else - ideally someone younger - ask them to do the same thing.
How did your answers match up?
Researchers have found that “grumpy” and “old” don’t necessarily go together. In fact, older people are more positive in our emotional responses.
The boffins in Sydney and Cambridge looked into this with a fascinating experiment by showing participants a range of videos while gauging their emotional reactions.
Their experiment was of course much more sophisticated than our version - but the images were a mix of the positive (e.g. babies giggling), negative (e.g. 9/11 pictures) or neutral (non-emotive clips of stock exchange reports).
The University of NSW research crunched the numbers and found Ageing is associated with a bias in attention and memories towards the positive - and away from negative emotional content.
“So we’re seeing an increase in positive emotionality with age,” explains Dr Susanne Schweizer, UNSW Science co-author of the study.
“Emotionality’ is an individual’s reaction to information, to emotional information…basically how we respond to our environment.
“…as we age, we become more adept at navigating our social environment, carrying a broader psychological toolkit, or simply rearranging our lives to minimise drama.”
Ageing presents a paradox as we tend to increase well-being and are more in control of our emotions even while there is a cognitive decline.
Do you think you are more in emotional control now than when you were younger?
