Role of Emotion Reactivity to Predict Facial Emotion Recognition Changes with Aging

Emotional intelligence includes an assortment of factors related to emotion function. Such factors involve emotion recognition (in this case via facial expression), emotion trait, reactivity, and regulation. We aimed to investigate how the subjective appraisals of emotional intelligence (i.e. trait, reactivity, and regulation) are associated with objective emotion recognition accuracy, and how these associations differ between young and older adults. Data were extracted from the CamCAN dataset (189 adults: 57 young/118 older) from assessments measuring these emotion constructs. Using linear regression models, we found that greater negative reactivity was associated with better emotion recognition accuracy among older adults, though the pattern was opposite for young adults with the greatest difference in disgust and surprise recognition. Positive reactivity and depression level predicted surprise recognition, with the associations significantly differing between the age groups. The present findings suggest the level to which older and young adults react to emotional stimuli differentially predicts their ability to correctly identify facial emotion expressions. Older adults with higher negative reactivity may be able to integrate their negative emotions effectively in order to recognize other's negative emotions more accurately. Alternatively, young adults may experience interference from negative reactivity, lowering their ability to recognize other's negative emotions.