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31 Sex Differences in Emotion Regulation and Emotional Awareness in Middle Aged and Older Adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2023

Jack R. Kaufman*
Affiliation:
Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Megan Armstrong
Affiliation:
Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Jeremy Maciarz
Affiliation:
Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Nikhil Palekar
Affiliation:
Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Joseph Kim
Affiliation:
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Vincent Koppelmans
Affiliation:
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Robert C. Welsh
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Scott A. Langenecker
Affiliation:
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Sara L. Weisenbach
Affiliation:
Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, USA. McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.
*
Correspondence: Jack Kaufman, Stony Brook Medicine ([email protected])
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Abstract

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Objective:

We measured sex differences in emotion regulation (ER) abilities – relying on exercise of cognitive reappraisal – during an image rating task in adults over 55 years of age with varying degrees of depression symptom severity. We also collected a self-report measure on participants' views of their own ER capacities. Previous research by this group has demonstrated the importance of emotion processing in the context of sex and aging in depression. We hypothesized that females would (1) score higher on the Cognitive Reappraisal Facet of the ERQ, (2) be more successful in utilizing cognitive reappraisal skills in response to negative stimuli; and (3) have self-report scores on the ERQ that more closely match their success at cognitive reappraisal than would males.

Participants and Methods:

capacities. Previous research by this group has demonstrated the importance of emotion processing in the context of sex and aging in depression. We hypothesized that females would (1) score higher on the Cognitive Reappraisal Facet of the ERQ, (2) be more successful in utilizing cognitive reappraisal skills in response to negative stimuli; and (3) have self-report scores on the ERQ that more closely match their success at cognitive reappraisal than would males.

Results:

Only the first of our three outcome measures was successfully predicted by the model including age, MADRS scores, and sex as predictors. Scores on the ERQ cognitive reappraisal facet with sex accounted for 11.3% of the variance (F=7.344, p=.009). Age and depression symptom severity did not reach significance. Performance on the ERT itself and the correlation between the two were not meaningfully modeled.

Conclusions:

Women showed both better cognitive reappraisal abilities overall and more insight into the level of those abilities, findings that fall in line with most ER literature. However, we found that females were also more likely than males to be skewed in the positive or “overconfident” direction; to overestimate those same abilities. This information is useful for clinicians interpreting self-report information in the emotion regulation domain. These findings may not generalize to a more diverse (racially and socioeconomically) population and given the cognitive nature of the reappraisal strategy; these results may not extend to a less educated population. These data will be useful to inform the interpretation of fMRI images from this same experiment.

Type
Poster Session 09: Psychiatric Disorders | Mood & Anxiety Disorders | Addiction | Social Cognition | Cognitive Neuroscience | Emotional and Social Processing
Copyright
Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2023