IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/eujoag/v19y2022i4d10.1007_s10433-022-00710-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A link between age, affect, and predictions?

Author

Listed:
  • Sabrina Trapp

    (Macromedia University of Applied Sciences
    Karolinska Institutet)

  • Marc Guitart-Masip

    (Karolinska Institutet
    Karolinska Institutet & Stockholm Health Care Services
    University College London
    Leipzig University)

  • Erich Schröger

    (Karolinska Institutet
    Leipzig University)

Abstract

The prevalence of depressive symptoms decreases from late adolescence to middle age adulthood. Furthermore, despite significant losses in motor and cognitive functioning, overall emotional well-being tends to increase with age, and a bias to positive information has been observed multiple times. Several causes have been discussed for this age-related development, such as improvement in emotion regulation, less regret, and higher socioeconomic status. Here, we explore a further explanation. Our minds host mental models that generate predictions about forthcoming events to successfully interact with our physical and social environment. To keep these models faithful, the difference between the predicted and the actual event, that is, the prediction error, is computed. We argue that prediction errors are attenuated in the middle age and older mind, which, in turn, may translate to less negative affect, lower susceptibility to affective disorders, and possibly, to a bias to positive information. Our proposal is primarily linked to perceptual inferences, but may hold as well for higher-level, cognitive, and emotional forms of error processing.

Suggested Citation

  • Sabrina Trapp & Marc Guitart-Masip & Erich Schröger, 2022. "A link between age, affect, and predictions?," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 945-952, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eujoag:v:19:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s10433-022-00710-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10433-022-00710-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10433-022-00710-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10433-022-00710-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amy Fiske & Margaret Gatz & Nancy L. Pedersen, 2003. "Depressive Symptoms and Aging: The Effects of Illness and Non-Health-Related Events," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(6), pages 320-328.
    2. Louise H. Phillips & Julie D. Henry & Judith A. Hosie & Alan B. Milne, 2008. "Effective Regulation of the Experience and Expression of Negative Affect in Old Age," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 63(3), pages 138-145.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muramatsu, Naoko & Yin, Hongjun & Hedeker, Donald, 2010. "Functional declines, social support, and mental health in the elderly: Does living in a state supportive of home and community-based services make a difference?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1050-1058, April.
    2. Tian, Wei-Hua & Liu, Tsai-Ching & Chen, Chin-Shyan & Liu, Li-Fan & Tien, Joseph J., 2012. "The relationship between depressive symptoms and health service utilization for elderly people in Taiwan," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 256-267.
    3. JeongHee Yeo & Yoon G. Lee, 2019. "Understanding the Association Between Perceived Financial Well-Being and Life Satisfaction Among Older Adults: Does Social Capital Play a Role?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 592-608, December.
    4. Lucy Prior & Kelvyn Jones & David Manley, 2020. "Ageing and cohort trajectories in mental ill-health: An exploration using multilevel models," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-14, July.
    5. Cara A. Palmer & Amy L. Gentzler, 2019. "Age-Related Differences in Savoring Across Adulthood: The Role of Emotional Goals and Future Time Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1281-1304, April.
    6. Molly A. Mather & Rebecca E. Ready, 2021. "Greater negative affect and mixed emotions during spontaneous reactions to sad films in older than younger adults," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 29-43, March.
    7. Nanhua Zhang & Henian Chen & Yuanshu Zou, 2014. "A joint model of binary and longitudinal data with non-ignorable missingness, with application to marital stress and late-life major depression in women," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 1028-1039, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:eujoag:v:19:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s10433-022-00710-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.