AGE MODERATES THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY

Abstract Background: According to the notion of maturational dualism, the link between mind and body weakens with age and this weakening has important consequences for emotional experiences. Specifically, it is hypothesized that age-related decline in interoceptive awareness and physiological reactivity reduce the ability to use bodily states to guide judgments about emotions. If this hypothesis is valid, then age may moderate the association between explicit measures (based on consciously accessible mental representations of affect) and implicit measures (based on unconscious affective processes such physiological activation) of affective reactivity. Purpose: To investigate whether age moderates the association between explicit and implicit measures of negative affective reactivity. Methods: A sample of 275 participants (age range=20-78) viewed 25 pictures validated to induce negative emotions. Participants filled in the PANAS assessing explicit affect and the IPANAT assessing implicit affect before and after viewing the pictures. Emotional reactivity was operationalized as residualized gain scores derived from regressions of baseline affect on affect following picture viewing. Results: Age moderated the association between implicit negative affective reactivity and explicit negative affective reactivity (B=60). Discussion: The results showed a reduced association between explicit and implicit negative affective reactivity with age. This finding is consistent with the notion of maturational dualism and may indicate that older adults use affective processes that are not represented consciously (e.g., physiological activation) less than young adults when judging their emotional state.

always beneficial for sexual life; rather, poor quality sexual lives during marriage can reduce opportunities for improvement that may arise with marital transitions, including divorce and widowhood.

THE IMPACT OF SEXUAL FLUIDITY AND SOCIAL SUPPORT ON EGO INTEGRITY IN OLDER ADULTS
Alicia C. Figueroa 1 , 1. Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, Illinois, United States The population of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Americans is growing as the number of older adults "come out. " While we know that "coming out" later in life impacts the experience of aging, little research has examined ways in which social support and sexual fluidity influence ego integrity in older adults. The present study investigated ego integration, changed sexual behavior, and perceived social support in adults 45 years of age and older who had been in a long-term relationship with the opposite sex prior to "coming out" as LGB. The average of participants was 61 years, sixty-eight percent (N = 43) were currently married or in a domestic partnership, and eighty-six percent (N = 54) identified as Caucasian. Individuals were recruited to participate in the survey utilizing online social media. Results (N = 63) suggested that those whose behavior was more sexually fluid were least ego integrated. Timing of "coming out" LGB, Early (44 and younger) versus Late (after the age of 45) impacted the degree of sexual fluidity and perceived social support. Results indicated those who "came out" Late were more sexually fluid and were less fearful of "coming out. " The most significant result revealed social support from significant others to be most impactful compared to friends and family. This research expands on the challenges of those who are aging in a non-normative environment. The implications suggest that individuals who "come out" later have a more difficult time with accepting their sexual fluidity.

EXPLORING AGE, GENDER, AND RELATIONSHIP CLOSENESS DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSES TO IGNORED DISRESPECT
Jenessa C. Steele, 1 Amanda Chappell, 1 and Rachel Scott 1 , 1.

Radford University, Radford, Virginia, United States
Emotional responses to disrespect tend to be negative (Hawkins, 2015). Little is known about how responses to disrespect vary across age groups and relationship closeness. It is unknown whether older adults have more emotional protection against disrespectful experiences, or are more deeply affected due to relationship closeness. Overall, we might expect that older adults react less negatively to disrespect compared to young adults, as they are more-skilled emotion regulators (Carstensen, 1991;English & Carstensen, 2014). We aimed to explore if, and under which circumstances, older adults are more or less sensitive to disrespect compared to younger adults. Three hundred participants responded to six scenarios illustrating ignored disrespect. Participants were randomly assigned to close or distant relationship disrespect scenarios. Relationship closeness was first determined by requesting participants identify a person in each layer of Kahn and Antonucci's (1980) Social Convoy Model. Identified names were then automatically inserted into the six scenarios. Emotional responses and sensitivity to each scenario were recorded. Participants in the close condition reported more sensitivity to disrespect and negative emotions than participants in the distant condition. Females reported more sensitivity to disrespect and negative emotions than males. We did not find overwhelming support for age differences in responses to disrespect. A single scenario indicated younger participants more sensitive to disrespect than older participants. Findings suggest it is more hurtful to be disrespected by someone close to you and females may be more sensitive to disrespect than males. More research investigating the role of age in disrespect is needed.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL JUDGEMENTS RELATE TO SOCIAL EXPERIENCE ON THE JOB FOR OLDER ADULTS Cassandra Richards, 1 and Jennifer T. Stanley 1 , 1 The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, United States
Older adults (OA) are worse than young adults (YA) at recognizing emotional facial expressions (Ruffman, Henry, Livingstone, & Phillips, 2008). In particular, age differences in anger recognition remain even when other emotions improve via additional context (e.g., Richter, Dietzel, & Kunzmann, 2011;Stanley & Isaacowitz, 2015). We investigated whether job experiences with greater social components would relate to better anger recognition and interpersonal perception in OA. We expected OA who held jobs with more social requirements would be better at anger recognition and interpersonal perception, but that this would differ by gender. OA (N=194) reported their present job and completed an emotion perception task and the Interpersonal Perception Task-15 (IPT-15;Costanzo & Archer, 1989). Ratings from the O*Net database were used to determine the degree of social requirements (0-100) for reported jobs. For older females, more social experience in their present job was related to better anger recognition (r =.45,p=.014). More face-to-face experience in the job held the longest was related to better overall emotion perception in older females (r=.20,p=.047). For older males, more social experience in their present job was related to worse anger recognition (r=-.45, p=.029). More coordination and leadership experience in the job held the longest was related to better interpersonal perception in older males (r =.28, p=.010). These results suggest gender is important when examining the degree to which social experience in the workplace relates to social judgments. Future work should investigate whether gender differences in subordinate vs leadership roles can account for these findings.

AGE MODERATES THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY
Mai B. Mikkelsen, 1 Gitte Tramm, 1 and Mimi Mehlsen 1 ,

Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Background: According to the notion of maturational dualism, the link between mind and body weakens with age and this weakening has important consequences for emotional experiences. Specifically, it is hypothesized that age-related decline in interoceptive awareness and physiological reactivity reduce the ability to use bodily states to guide judgments about emotions. If this hypothesis is valid, then age may moderate the association between explicit measures (based on consciously accessible mental representations of affect) and implicit measures (based on unconscious affective processes such physiological activation) of affective reactivity. Purpose: To investigate whether age moderates the association between explicit and implicit measures of negative affective reactivity. Methods: A sample of 275 participants (age range=20-78) viewed 25 pictures validated to induce negative emotions. Participants filled in the PANAS assessing explicit affect and the IPANAT assessing implicit affect before and after viewing the pictures. Emotional reactivity was operationalized as residualized gain scores derived from regressions of baseline affect on affect following picture viewing. Results: Age moderated the association between implicit negative affective reactivity and explicit negative affective reactivity (B=60). Discussion: The results showed a reduced association between explicit and implicit negative affective reactivity with age. This finding is consistent with the notion of maturational dualism and may indicate that older adults use affective processes that are not represented consciously (e.g., physiological activation) less than young adults when judging their emotional state.

THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE: SOCIAL VIRTUAL REALITY AS A REMINISCENCE TOOL
Steven J. Baker, 1 Jenny Waycott, 1 Jeni Warburton, 2 and Frances Batchelor 1 , 1. The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2. La Trobe University, Wodonga, Victoria, Australia A large body of research demonstrates the positive impact that reminiscence activities can have on older adult wellbeing. Within this space, researchers have begun to explore how virtual reality (VR) technology might be used as a reminiscence tool. The immersive characteristics of VR could aid reminiscence by giving the sense of being fully present in a virtual environment that evokes the time being explored in the reminiscence session. However, to date, research into the use of VR as a reminiscence tool has overwhelmingly focussed on static environments that can only be viewed by a single user. This paper reports on a firstof-its-kind research project that used social VR (multiple users co-present in a single virtual environment), and 3D representations of personal artifacts (such as, photographs and recorded anecdotes), to allow a group of older adults to reminisce about their school experiences. Sixteen older adults aged 70-81 participated in a four-month user study, meeting in groups with a facilitator in a social virtual world called the Highway of Life. Results demonstrate how the social experience, tailored environment, and personal artifacts that were features of the social VR environment allowed the older adults to collaboratively reminisce about their school days. We conclude by considering the benefits and challenges associated with using social VR as a reminiscence tool with older adults. Recruiting nursing home (NH) residents to participate in program evaluations is a consistent challenge. This was evident in a federally supported project to improve personcentered care of long-stay NH residents enrolled in Medicaid. Evaluators sought to examine the impact of a life story work intervention using a pre-post study design involving interviews of NH residents and surveys of their family members and staff. Other resident eligibility criteria included willingness to participate in both research and life story interviews, age 60+, a Brief Inventory Mental Status (BIMS) score of 8 or higher, English-speaking, and consent from a legal guardian, if applicable. A total of 16 NHs agreed to participate in the implementation and evaluation of the program, which developed complimentary, individualized life story booklets for residents and a companion summary for staff. Of the homes' combined population of 1,817 residents, 569 met eligibility criteria for the research study. Non-response from legal guardians excluded 37 residents, and 174 residents approached for recruitment declined to have their names released to the researchers. During baseline interviews, 20 residents failed the BIMS, 21 were unavailable, and 79 refused when approached by a research interviewer. Ultimately, 238 resident interviews were completed at baseline. Common themes for refusals included disinterest in participating in life story work, statements that theirs was not a good life worth talking about, and doubts that quality of care would improve. Strategies for addressing such challenges included displaying sample life story materials during recruitment and providing residents additional time to consider participation.