spond flexibly to variations in affect and engage in proper emergency re-
sponses. However, as a result of normative cognitive development or individ-
ual differences in self-regulatory capacity, individuals can come to habitually
adopt more or less integrated forms of regulation. To demonstrate relatively
permanent movements to higher integration, we discuss cognitive-affective
growth from childhood to adulthood, while a relatively permanent move-
ment to degradation may occur in later life when individual’s resources de-
cline. However, these general patterns are likely to be modified by relatively
enduring individual differences patterns or regulation styles.
The proposed theory offers a coherent process-oriented view of integrated
and defensive forms of affect regulation. While being process oriented and
applicable to relatively microlevel experimental interactions of affect and
cognitive resources, it also can be extended to more macroanalytical proc-
esses of self, personality, and development. Thus, it implies a plethora of rich
suggestions for the study of integrated development across the life span, as
well as mechanisms and causes for more degraded and defensive forms of de-
velopment. To explore these implications for a process-oriented analysis of
cognition-affect relations across the life span forms the focus of our current
research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Preparation of this chapter and the research reported in it was supported by a
NIA grant (RO1 AG009203) to the first author.
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264 LABOUVIE-VIEF AND GONZÁLEZ