for varied stimulation (adventure, novelty, risk) to be associated with cogni-
tive flexibility and complexity, nonconformism and spontaneity, as well as
tolerance for cognitive incompatibilities.
Optimization, Complexity, and Aging
Although in the research on regulation styles, the role of group membership
seemed to outweigh that of age, our results also showed that age did matter.
When comparing young, middle aged, and old adults, our results indicate
that among the older age group, a significantly smaller number of individuals
falls into the complex group, while a disproportionately high number falls
into the self-protective group. Our interpretation of this finding is that, as in-
dividuals grow older and experience declines in cognitive-affective complex-
ity, they tend to rely more strongly on optimization strategies. Indeed, our
longitudinal data indicate that among the old, 6-year declines in cognitive-af-
fective complexity predict increases in optimization, lending support to such
a compensatory interpretation (Labouvie-Vief et al., 2003).
The notion that changes in cognitive resources associated with normal aging
produce lower integration and more degradation is in line with the dynamic in-
tegration principle. A paradigm case of such a change in resources is that of
normal aging. In the Labouvie-Vief (Labouvie-Vief, Chiodo, et al., 1995;
Labouvie-Vief, Diehl, et al., 1995) research on life span changes in cognitive-
affective complexity, the initial expectation was that the kinds of positive devel-
opments apparent in the young to middle adulthood range would continue
into later life. However, the data clearly suggested that this was not the case.
From about age 60 onward, affect complexity appeared to decline, a pattern
we recently confirmed with longitudinal data (Labouvie-Vief, Zhang, & Jain,
2003). In retrospect, however, this growth-then-decline pattern makes good
theoretical sense given the cognitive-developmental cast of this work, since a
plethora of data suggests that older individuals suffer from deficits in working
memory (Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Mitchell, Johnson, Raye, Mather, &
D’Esposito, 2000; Salthouse, 1994; Shimamura, 1995), and inhibitory (Hasher,
Stoltzfus, Zacks, & Rypma, 1991; McDowd, Oseas-Kreger, & Filion, 1995)
and executive control (Rabbitt & Lowe, 2000; West, 1996), as well as evidenc-
ing decline in the neurobiological structures (Cabeza, 2002; Raz, 2000) that
support these functions. Indeed, as we discuss later in this section, patterns of
growth-then-decline in cognitive-affective differentiation–complexity are in
line with a wide body of emerging data on the role of cognition in emotion reg-
ulation. Nevertheless, a significant body of evidence shows that even though
cognitive-affective complexity decreases in later life, increasing age is related
to linear increases in well-being (Carstensen, 1991; Davis & Smith, 1995;
Diehl, Coyle, & Labouvie-Vief, 1996; Lucas & Diener, 2000; Mroczek &
Kolarz, 1998; Ryff, 1989; Staudinger, Marsiske, & Baltes, 1995). Such data
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