Do Hassles and Uplifts Change with Age? Longitudinal Findings from the NAS

To examine emotion regulation in later life, we contrasted the modified hedonic treadmill theory with developmental theories, using hassles and uplifts to assess emotion regulation in context. The sample was 1,315 men from the VA Normative Aging Study aged 53 to 85 years, who completed 3,894 observations between 1989 and 2004. We computed three scores for both hassles and uplifts: intensity (ratings reflecting emotion regulation), exposure (count), and summary (total) scores. Computing growth curves over age showed marked differences in trajectory patterns for intensity and exposure scores. Although exposure to hassles and uplifts decreased in later life, intensity scores increased. Growth mixture models (GMM) showed individual differences in patterns of hassles and uplifts intensity and exposure, with relative stability in uplifts intensity, normative non-linear changes in hassles intensity, and complex patterns of individual differences in exposure for both hassles and uplifts. Analyses with the summary scores showed that emotion regulation in later life is a function of both developmental change and contextual exposure, with different patterns emerging for hassles and uplifts. Thus, support was found for both hedonic treadmill and development change theories, reflecting different aspects of change in emotion regulation with age.