A web-based examination of experiences with intrusive thoughts across the adult lifespan

Intrusive thoughts and images are common across the adult lifespan, but vary in their consequences. Understanding age-related experiences with intrusive thoughts is important for identifying risk and protective factors for intrusive thought problems across the adult lifespan. This study characterized age trajectories for six aspects of experiences with intrusive thoughts using Internet data collection.

Participants (N = 1427; ages 18-87) were randomly assigned to suppress (i.e. keep out of mind) or monitor an intrusive thought for one minute, and then later to monitor the thought for a second minute. Participants tracked thought recurrences during each thinking period, then reported their positive and negative affects following each thinking period, as well as their effort expended in suppressing the thought and perceived difficulty controlling the intrusive thought. Multilevel modeling and generalized estimating equations modeled the continuous relationships between age and each dependent variable.

As expected, older age was associated with less decline in positive affect while engaging with an intrusive thought. Interestingly, older age was also associated with a sharper rise and fall of negative affect. Suppression effort increased linearly with age (though perceived difficulty did not). Finally, no age differences were found in either the frequency or duration of the thought's recurrence, adding to previous evidence that older adults function similarly to younger adults in their control of intrusive thoughts, despite certain age-related declines in cognitive functioning.

These findings suggest a dissociation between age-related changes in emotional versus cognitive characteristics of engaging with intrusive thoughts.