Emotion communication skills in young, middle-aged, and older women

We assessed the effectiveness of an emotion induction procedure for the study of emotional communication in adults; we also gathered preliminary age-comparative data on the expressive and receptive capacities of a sample of adult women. Young, middle-aged, and older women (encoders) related emotional experiences following mood induction and then assessed the intensity of their affective experiences. Videotapes of these sessions (facial expressions only) were shown to young, middle-aged, and older female judges (decoders), who rated the encoders for emotional intensity as well as for type of affect being communicated. Validity and reliability issues with respect to the procedure's usefulness are discussed. Decoding accuracy was found to vary with age congruence between encoder and decoder, suggesting a decoding advantage accruing through social contact with like-aged peers. Older decoders did most poorly, but a differential warm-up effect was evident, suggesting that the performance of older subjects might be enhanced with practice. There were also trends suggesting that the affective expressions of older subjects may be harder to decode owing to age-related structural changes in the face. Results are discussed in the context of theoretical models of affective development.