Age and emotional experience during mutual reminiscing.

In the present article, the authors examined age differences in the emotional experiences involved in talking about past events. In Study 1, 129 adults in an experience-sampling study reported whether they were engaged in mutual reminiscing and their concurrent experience of positive and negative emotion. Their experiences of positive and negative emotion during mutual reminiscing were compared with emotional experience during other social activities. Age was associated with increasing positive emotion during mutual reminiscing. In Study 2 (n = 132), the authors examined emotions during reminiscing for specific positive and negative events. In this case, age was associated with improved emotional experiences but only during reminiscing about positive experiences. Findings are discussed in terms of socioemotional selectivity theory and the literature on reminiscence and life review.