Age and Flourishing Mental Health: The Role of Rumination on Well-Being

TL;DR

This study finds that older adults have better mental health due to less dwelling on negative emotions, not because they feel more positive.

Contribution

The study identifies rumination as a key factor linking age and mental health, challenging the positivity effect theory.

Findings

Older age is associated with higher flourishing mental health, independent of coping strategies.

Rumination explains 52% of the age-flourishing mental health relationship.

Positive affect is not significantly linked to age in this context.

Abstract

A growing number of studies find that older age is often related to higher levels of emotional well-being despite marked declines in cognitive and physical function. Although the positivity effect is not an emotion regulation strategy, an age-related preference to attend to more positively valenced affective experiences may contribute to higher levels of well-being. The current study hypothesized that age is related to higher levels of emotional well-being, and that this association is due to age differences in the tendency to dwell on negative emotions (rumination) and not specific coping strategies. Adults (N = 393) ranging from 18 to 83 years old completed measures of emotional wellbeing (positive & negative affect; flourishing mental health), rumination, and coping strategies (avoidant; emotion-focused, problem-focused, and social support). Age was not significantly associated with higher rates of positive affect. However, older age was related to higher levels of flourishing mental health (B(SE) = .012(.003), p = .0002), even with the addition of coping strategies in the model. With the addition of rumination to the model, rumination accounted for 52% of the association between age and flourishing mental health (B(SE) = .005(.003), p = .05), suggesting higher levels of psychological well-being in older age are related to decreased ruminative tendencies rather than previously posited increases in positive affective experiences.