Abstract

Introduction and objectiveAttributes are used by young, middle-aged, and older adults to describe persons in everyday life. The current study asks whether attributes are perceived similarly by different age groups: for example, some attributes could be perceived as more positive or more negative in old age than in young adulthood. MethodTo address this question, we investigated age-related differences in emotional evaluations of French adjectives. Young, middle-aged, and older adults judged 835 French adjectives on valence, arousal, and imagery. ResultsAge groups agreed highly on the relative rank order but showed mean differences for a substantial number of attributes, especially for arousal and imagery ratings. Associations between dimensions differed as well between age groups: valence and arousal were negatively correlated and this correlation was stronger in older than in younger age groups. ConclusionThe present study provided new evidence that the perception of emotionally toned material is affected by age. Several explanations to these age-related differences are discussed.

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