[Problems in assessing emotional reactions in the aged by means of experimental methods]

This paper critically discusses the usually used assessment methods (self-report measures) of emotional behaviour in old persons and presents a "reactive approach" to measure emotions in old and young subjects. "Reactive" means the registration of emotional changes to defined emotion inducing stimuli or situations. Advantages, problems, and limitations of the reactive approach are discussed in relation to some results of an experiment using 12 stimuli of different emotional qualities to assess emotional reactivity in 20 young (25-35 years) and 20 old (65-75 years) subjects.