suggest that the ability to dampen negative and maximize positive affect may
be quite independent of cognitive-affective complexity, again providing sup-
port to the notion that affect differentiation and optimization refer to rather
distinct processes that can remain dissociated. To examine the nature and
cause of such dissociations thus remains an important aspect of developmental
theory.
The tradeoff between optimization and differentiation can offer an inte-
gration of the dual pattern (linear increase, curvilinear rise-and-drop) of ag-
ing and affect regulation discussed previously. Thus it is possible that the
widely documented limitation of complex cognitive resources in later life
plays a critical factor in regulating arousal if older individuals cannot rely on
relatively overlearned or crystallized cognitive-affective schemas. In accor-
dance with the hot–cool system distinction and the principle of dynamic inte-
gration, some lifespan researchers emphasizing the optimization criterion
propose that improvements in affect balance in later life reflect older individ-
uals’ tendency to have a wealth of well-integrated schemas. Relying on these
schemas allows them to maintain lowered arousal levels through more effec-
tive antecedent rather than less effective and more disruptive consequent con-
trol (Gross, 1998; Gross et al., 1997).
Research on social cognition and aging has indeed shown that older
adults rely more heavily on scripts in the encoding of events (Hess, Donley,
& Vandermaas, 1989), but show poorer memory performance than young
people with information that cannot easily be integrated in preexisting
knowledge structures (Hess & Tate, 1992). In the same line, older adults are
more likely than younger ones to falsely recognize words semantically asso-
ciated with sets of studied words (Norman & Schachter, 1997) and pictures
categorically related to previously presented pictures (Koutstaal & Schach-
ter, 1997) as studied or presented, respectively. Johnson, Hashtroudi, and
Lindsay (1993) explained these findings by means of an age-related decline
in the capacity to engage in effortful, resource-consuming evaluation proc-
esses that can help identify the origins of memories (source memory).
Waddell and Rogoff (1981) found that age differences in memory were
lower if test stimuli are more meaningfully organized, what, once again,
suggests that older adults are able to rely on general knowledge, maybe as a
mean to potentiate their recall.
Reliance on the familiar also can serve an affect-regulating function by
protecting the aging individual from exposure to unfamiliar and unstructured
situations that may arouse difficult to manage affect. Such a tradeoff func-
tion was suggested in 1973 by Lawton (Lawton & Nahemow, 1973): individu-
als, as they experience restrictions in inner resources (competence) can main-
tain positive affect by simplifying their environments. In a similar fashion, as
individuals experience reductions in affect differentiation, they can maintain
a strategy of affect optimization, as long as they reduce the demands made on
260 LABOUVIE-VIEF AND GONZÁLEZ