emphasis on how individuals organize positive and negative affect in terms of
differentiated cognitive-affective structures. Anticipated by Loevinger’s
(1976) work on ego development, this orientation recently has led to several
proposals that focus on individuals’ understanding and organization of affect
terms across time, context, and emotion category or valence. Variously re-
ferred to by such terms as cognitive-affective complexity or differentiation
(Labouvie-Vief, DeVoe, & Bulka, 1989; Labouvie-Vief & Medler, 2002),
emotional awareness (Lane, 2000; Lane & Schwartz, 1987), or emotional in-
telligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1995), some authors (e.g., Labouvie-Vief, 1999;
Labouvie-Vief & Medler, 2002; Ryan & Deci, 2001) have suggested that these
terms refer to a second criterion of adaptive emotion regulation that is some-
what independent of valence-based ones, per se.
In this chapter, we suggest that ideally in development, individuals coordi-
nate these modes into integrated cognitive-affective structures. Each of those
modes implies a different criterion of what constitutes optimal functioning,
however. The first mode, affect optimization, emphasizes hedonic quality
through an emphasis on maximizing positive and minimizing negative affect.
In contrast, the second mode, affect differentiation, emphasizes conceptual
and emotional complexity, individuation and personal growth, and the abil-
ity to maintain open, elaborated and objective representations of reality even
in the face of negative though vital information. We further suggest that these
apparently different patterns of self and emotion development in adulthood
can be reconciled by the assumption that ideally, the two modes of affect reg-
ulation cooperate in an integrated fashion, assuring well being through an
emphasis on both hedonic tone and open, complex representations. In many
cases, however, individuals may come to favor one mode over the other, cre-
ating less balanced and well-integrated regulation as they sacrifice a complex,
objective representation of reality for positive affect, or else sacrifice positive
affect for complexity. Such a lack of integration has important implications
for describing individual differences in patterns of successful aging, and those
individual differences, in turn, may have profound implications for physical
and psychological health. Below, we summarize the general theoretical model
of integration and its implications for examining adult age differences and
age changes.
AFFECT AND COGNITION IN DEVELOPMENT:
CONSTRUCTIVIST-DEVELOPMENTAL
PERSPECTIVES
The paradox that positive affect may not be a sufficient criterion of well-being
and adaptation has a long historical tradition. Since Freud’s (1925/1963) sug-
gestion that the demands of the Id’s pleasure principle must be balanced by the
238 LABOUVIE-VIEF AND GONZÁLEZ