Growing Old at a Young Age 1 Growing Old at a Young Age: Do Depressive Symptoms Result in a Shortened Time Perspective? by

Researchers have used Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST; Carstensen, 2006) to explain findings that older adults and younger adults with a known ending (e.g., college graduation) prefer to interact with familiar partners as compared to novel partners. According to SST, choosing familiar partners with whom to interact is indicative of increased preference of emotionally salient material resulting from a shortened time perspective. The objective of this study is to expand SST to a clinical sample by examining if the interpersonal orientation observed in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) can be explained by a shortened time perspective. A total of 97 undergraduate psychology students took part in this study. Participants were asked to choose between familiar or novel partners under various levels of time constraint in order to examine the impact of time perspective on preference for social partners. In addition, participants were asked to estimate their lifespan with reference to the average lifespan, as well as provide estimates for four other life events, to assess time perception. Participants also completed measures to assess depressive symptoms. The primary hypothesis was that individuals with high levels of depressive symptoms would show a more limited time perspective, compared to individuals with low depressive symptoms, and a preference for familiar partners under all time constraint conditions. Findings in this study may help to provide information in treating patients with MDD. Growing Old at a Young Age 3 Growing Old at a Young Age: Do Depressive Symptoms Result in a Shortened Time Perspective? Humans are social creatures and social relationships are universally important. There are developmental changes that occur in human relationships over the course of the lifespan. Researchers have demonstrated that as we age, we become more selective in how we spend our time and, as a result, we have fewer, albeit more meaningful, relationships in our lives (Carstensen, 1995). As older adults become more selective in their relationships with age, there is also evidence that these relationships become more important, compared to other types of goals. Research has shown that older adults tend to orient more toward interpersonal relationships and socially salient goals (as compared to novel experiences or information gathering goals) than younger adults (Fung, Carstensen, & Lutz, 1999). One way in which this has been demonstrated is through the assessment of preferences for spending free time; older adults tend to prefer familiar social partners (like a family member) to a greater degree than younger adults, who report equal preferences for family members, acquaintances, and authors of their favorite novels (Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990). There are many ways in which relationships are important to humans. One way in which relationships may be important is through the role they play in affect regulation. It is possible that relationships and attention to these relationships help us to regulate our emotional states. Carstensen and Turk-Charles (1994) found that older adults prioritize emotional information compared to non-emotional information. In addition, older adults were found to remember more emotional material than their younger adult counter-parts, even though memory declines with age (Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994). Additionally, Growing Old at a Young Age 4 researchers have shown that older adults show declines in negative affect but maintain positive affect (Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994). This decline in negative affect, with the associated maintenance of positive affect, has been suggested as evidence of improved emotion regulation with age, potentially through enhanced interpersonal functioning. Carstensen (1987) posited Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) to explain enhanced emotion regulation and increased orientation toward emotionally salient information. SST addresses three main ideas. First, the theory is based on the premise that social interaction is core to survival (Carstensen et al., 1999). Second, the theory incorporates findings suggesting that humans are consistently engaged in behaviors that are geared toward the completion of goals (e.g., Bandura, 1997). Lastly, the theory holds that whether time is perceived as expansive or limited influences the assessment process that paves the way for goal selection (Carstensen et al., 1999). According to the theory, as time perception becomes more limited (in the case of older adults, through approaching the end of the lifespan), individuals turn to more meaningful, socially salient goals and let go of information gathering and novel experience goals. According to SST, emotion regulation is impacted through adequate progress toward goals and, as such, turning attention toward emotionally salient, interpersonal goals will not only increase the likelihood of accomplishing those goals, but will also increase the likelihood that emotional homeostasis will be maintained. Researchers have tested the contention that people facing social endings (i.e., limited time perception) may favor familiar over novel social partners in order to maximize pleasurable social contact and meet emotionally salient goals. Carstensen, Growing Old at a Young Age 5 Isaacowitz, and Charles (1999) argued that the approach of an ending is related to the heightened emphasis on feelings and emotional states and that the most compelling activities would be those that might regulate emotion effectively. They proposed that activities that are viewed as unpleasant or without meaning are not compelling when time is perceived as limited or finite. Carstensen (2006) has suggested time perceived as finite is associated with focusing more on emotionally-relevant stimuli and interpersonal connectedness. However, when time is perceived as infinite, it is associated with seeking novel experiences and achievement-oriented stimuli. This may be due to the decreased need for affect regulation that allows for the orientation toward other important goals, such as achievement and accumulation of new experiences. Fredrickson and Carstensen (1990) designed a study to examine the preference in social partners under unspecified (i.e., infinite) and ending (i.e., finite) conditions. They examined whether partner selectivity is responsive to situational constraints, mainly the constraints associated with anticipated social endings. They hypothesized that in general, older people (because of their place in the life cycle) would choose familiar social partners more often than would younger people but younger people would mirror the social choices of the elderly when endings were made salient. The first condition asked participants to choose from among three social partners: (a) a member of the participant’s immediate family; (b) the author of a book that the participant had read; or (c) an acquaintance with whom the participant seemed to have much in common. In the first condition, there was no specific timeframe given. In the second condition, a time constraint was introduced, in which the participant was asked to imagine that in a few weeks, they would be moving across the country by themselves and that they only had Growing Old at a Young Age 6 had thirty free minutes. They were then given the same three choices of social partners. This study found that older adults were more likely then younger adults to prefer familiar social partners in the condition where time was unspecified. However, in the condition in which a social ending was presented, younger adults’ preferences for social partners mirrored older adults’ preferences and participants in both groups were more likely to choose spending time with a family member over the other options. This suggests that when someone perceives a social ending, or a limitation on available time, they prefer social partners that are familiar compared to novel partners. Fung, Carstensen, and Lutz (1999) repeated the study by Fredrickson and Carstensen (1990) in a Hong Kong sample and found similar results with older adults preferring familiar social partners to novel ones when time was not experimentally constrained. In addition, further research has found that when older adults are provided with instructions to make time infinite (imagining that an extra twenty years of good health has been added to their life expectancy; Fung et al., 1999) or younger adults are given instructions to make time seen finite (Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990), age differences in interpersonal orientation and goal orientation (as operationalized by choice of social partner) disappear. Research on SST has expanded beyond the interpersonal orientation of older adults by focusing on other groups with naturalistically occurring limitations on available time. For example, Carstensen and Fredrickson (1998) looked at sample comprised of young gay men who were divided into three groups: HIV negative, HIV positive/asymptomatic, or HIV positive/symptomatic. The mean age in all three groups was 37 years old. Those who were HIV positive and symptomatic placed greater Growing Old at a Young Age 7 emphasis on emotionally salient goals (i.e., known partners) than informational (i.e., author) or future possibilities (i.e., acquaintance) in social partners. This finding helped to support the idea that the perception of available time is an important factor in the way people think about social partners. Further evidence is provided by looking at first year students and seniors in college. Seniors represent a group approaching the social ending of graduation from college with a finite amount of time left in an important developmental stage and freshman serve as a comparison group, as they are not yet facing a developmental ending. Fredrickson (1995) studied the daily patterns of social interaction between college students, looking specifically at partner selectivity, time selectivity, and emotion