The importance of emotional awareness for understanding depression and life satisfaction across the adult lifespan

Traditional views of well-being include the direct experience of emotion, but rarely consider affective factors outside of direct emotional experiences. Emotional awareness involves the meta-cognitive monitoring, evaluation, and judgment one makes about their emotions. To the extent that emotions provide useful information about one’s goals and goal progress, being able to understand that information should facilitate goal attainment and promote psychological well- being and mental health. Therefore, the present research tests ways in which emotional awareness may contribute to psychological well-being across the adult lifespan. Study 1 indicated that emotional and goal clarity are separable constructs both linked to depression and life satisfaction. Furthermore, emotional clarity appears to increase linearly from young adulthood into older adulthood. Study 2 showed that age, depression, and life satisfaction were only weakly associated with emotion differentiation. However, emotion differentiation moderated the links between mean-level affect and psychological well-being outcomes. Implications for aging research and clinical intervention are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Eckland, Nathaniel S

Contributors dc:contributor

• Berenbaum, Howard
• Roberts, Brent W
• Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth
• Laurent, Heidemarie K
• Hankin, Benjamin L

• Psychology

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Nathaniel Eckland

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116017

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F116017