# Tearjerkers may leave some eyes dry: Emotional reactivity to film clips from adolescence to old age

## TL;DR

This study finds that emotional reactions to film clips vary significantly across different age groups, with older adults and adolescents showing distinct patterns.

## Contribution

The study introduces new insights into how emotional reactivity to film clips differs across adolescence to old age.

## Key findings

- Older adults showed higher emotional intensity than other age groups for certain emotions.
- Adolescents exhibited lower emotional intensity compared to other age groups.
- Emotional specificity varied by age group and film type.

## Abstract

Emotional film clips are frequently used to induce emotions in age‐mixed samples, but past research warrants doubt that this evokes comparable effects across age groups. We investigated age differences in target‐emotion intensity and emotion specificity (the tendency to primarily respond with one target emotion rather than others), using data from a film‐rating study with 5843 individual ratings. Ninety‐nine persons from four age groups (adolescents; younger, middle‐aged and older adults) rated their emotional responses to 66 happy, fearful, angry, sad, disgusting and neutral film clips. Crossed‐random‐effects models showed differential age effects across target emotions. When age differences emerged, older adults responded more intensely and adolescents responded less intensely than other age groups. Emotional specificity was lower in older adults versus younger age groups for disgusting and neutral films, but higher for happy films. We conclude that age‐equivalent responding to emotional films may be rather the exception than the rule.