International journal of aging & human development
-
Int J Aging Hum Dev · Jan 2004
Deconstructing positive affect in later life: a differential functionalist analysis of joy and interest.
Positive affect, an index of psychological well-being, is a known predictor of functionality and health in later life. Measures typically studied include joy, happiness, and subjective well-being, but less often interest--a positive emotion with functional properties that differ from joy or happiness. Following differential emotions theory, the present study measured trait joy and interest in a population-based sample of 1,118 adults aged 65-86 years. ⋯ Interest was, in fact, associated with greater stress. Both emotions were positively associated with social support. We use the pattern of predictors to develop a functionalist conceptualization of these two emotions in later life, concluding that it is worthwhile to treat interest and joy as partially-independent positive affects contributing differentially to human emotionality and later life adaptation.