 24. Emotion Regulation  533
such as self-  perceptions versus actual behav -
ior. That being said, 1 or 2 weeks of daily 
measures may not be sufficient to capture 
the stability of emotion regulation patterns; 
ecological momentary assessment measures 
might only provide reliable assessments that 
correlate with trait-level measures after a 
more extended period of sampling.
Work on child and adult development sug -
gests there are normative changes in many 
aspects of emotion regulation throughout 
the lifespan (Thompson, 1991). There is 
evidence of age-  related differences in emo -
tion regulation strategy use in childhood 
(Gullone, Hughes, King, & Tonge, 2010; 
Zimmerman & Iwanski, 2014), adolescence 
(Lantrip, Isquith, Koven, Welsh, & Roth, 
2016; Riediger & Klipker, 2014; Voon, 
Hasking, & Martin, 2014), and adulthood 
(cf. Eldesouky & English, 2018; John & 
Gross, 2004). For example, reappraisal use 
tends to be lower in older children com -
pared to younger children (Gullone et al., 
2010), but greater in adolescents (Lantrip et 
al., 2016) and older adults (John & Gross, 
2004). The overall motivation to regulate 
one’s emotions and the specific reasons 
for doing so also seem to differ across age 
groups. In terms of daily emotion regula -
tion goals, contrahedonic regulation is more 
common during adolescence, while prohe -
donic regulation is more common in old age 
(Riediger Schmiedek, Wagner, & Linden -
berger, 2009). Socioemotional selectivity 
theory (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 
1999) suggests that motivation shifts across 
adulthood, such that people become more 
focused on emotion-  related goals as they 
age. Consistent with this idea, older adults 
are more likely than their younger counter -
parts to attend to and remember positive 
stimuli rather than negative stimuli (Mather 
& Carstensen, 2005). Given increased moti -
vation to pursue emotion-  related goals and 
accumulated life experience, emotion regu -
lation ability is thought to improve later in 
life. However, although older adults report 
having greater control over their emotions 
than younger adults (Gross et al., 1997) and 
use some strategies more effectively (Shiota 
& Levenson, 2009), there is still mixed evi -
dence about whether emotion regulation ac -
tually becomes more effective (Livingstone 
& Isaacowitz, 2019).Nearly all of the current research has 
used cross-  sectional methods, so longitudi -
nal data are now needed to help determine 
how individuals change over time, as well as 
when and why these changes might occur. 
For example, at what point in young adult -
hood might individuals begin to rely more 
on reappraisal than on suppression, and 
what aspects of biology and social roles 
might contribute to this change? In light of 
recent theories highlighting the importance 
of cognitive resources for emotion regula -
tion (Charles, 2010; Urry & Gross, 2010), 
when might use of certain strategies begin 
to be harmful for older adults? Moreover, 
longitudinal research will also be useful for 
determining whether changes in certain as -
pects of emotion regulation are contingent 
on changes in other traits, or whether these 
changes occur independently. For instance, 
comparing goal and strategy trajectories 
within individuals can provide evidence of 
whether changes in motivation precede or 
trigger changes in strategy use. Advancing 
understanding about changes in emotion 
regulation strategy use might also be a result 
of some of the changes in other personality 
traits we see in older adulthood. For exam -
ple, decreased suppression use in older adult -
hood (John & Gross, 2004) may be partly 
due to an age-  related decline in neuroticism 
(McCrae et al., 1999; Lucas & Donnellan, 
2011), in light of work showing a positive 
link between suppression and neuroticism 
(Gresham & Gullone, 2012).
In addition to this long-term change, 
there is also variability in emotion regula -
tion across different situations or contexts. 
For instance, prior work has documented 
changes in emotion regulation patterns in 
response to a major life transitions or chang -
es in roles. Specifically, a longitudinal study 
comparing emotion regulation the summer 
before college and after college orientation 
found an increased reliance on expressive 
suppression after starting college (Srivastava 
et al., 2009). Work using ecological momen -
tary assessments has not only documented 
the relative pursuit of emotion regulation 
goals (e.g., English et al., in press; Kalokeri -
nos, Tamir, & Kuppens, 2017) and use of 
various emotion regulation strategies (e.g., 
Brans et al., 2013; Heiy & Cheavens, 2014), 
but it also highlights daily fluctuations in 