Aging, attention and situation selection: older adults create mixed emotional environments

Studies of age differences in affective experience tend to report positive age trends. Studies of attentional deployment also tend to find older individuals attending more to positive and less to negative stimuli. However, everyday entertainment choices seem to vary by age more in terms of meaningfulness and value than by valence. Relatively few age differences emerge in the valence of choices made in situation selection tasks, though older adults avoid arousal. Thus, both younger and older adults actively construct mixed emotional environments.