2026-09-20T07:59:24Zhttps://api.mountainscholar.org/server/oai/request

oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/2409752026-06-11T20:17:27Zcom_10217_100532com_10217_100000com_10217_100455com_10217_100303col_10217_182111col_10217_100456

Yang, Yijia, author Luong, Gloria, advisor Aichele, Stephen, committee member Nelson, Niccole, committee member 2025-06-02T15:20:08Z 2026-05-28 2025 Yang_colostate_0053N_18917.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/10217/240975 https://doi.org/10.25675/3.02299 Background and Objectives: Stress may predict poorer health through increased negative affect (NA), which is formally termed as NA reactivity. Age is an important factor associated with different emotional advantages. However, findings about age differences in NA reactivity are mixed in the literature, such that some studies show older adults exhibit more NA reactivity than younger adults, whereas others show a reverse trend or no age-related differences at all. The current study tested this inconsistency by exploring how age differences in NA reactivity vary by stressor type. Design and Methods: Participants were from the Health and Daily Experiences (HEADE) study, which included 56 younger adults (19-35) and 106 older adults (60+) who completed three lab sessions and eight consecutive days of ecological momentary assessments (EMA) surveys. Three stressor types, cognitively demanding stressors, interpersonal stressors, and general daily life stressors, were studied through repeated measures ANOVA on the collected data. Results: We found that stressor type significantly moderated age differences in NA reactivity. More specifically, older adults showed more NA reactivity while facing cognitively demanding stressors. However, the age differences were not statistically significant for interpersonal and general daily life stressors. Also, no statistically significant result was found for the moderating effect of stressor severity on the association between age differences and NA reactivity. Discussion and Conclusions: Overall, younger adults and older adults display different emotional advantages depending on different types of stressors. Thus, specific age-related health recommendations could be proposed based on different stressor types, and studying age differences in NA reactivity about other types of stressors would be a future direction. born digital masters theses English eng Colorado State University. Libraries 2020- Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright. NA reactivity stressor types stressor severity age differences Age differences in negative affective reactivity: do stressor types matter? Text 2026-05-28 2026-05-28 This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). Master of Science (M.S.) Masters Human Development and Family Studies Colorado State University open.access