Abstract

This study examined whether the effects of sadness and anger intensity and variability on stress and health measures were moderated by between- and within-person differences of perceived control. It was expected that elevated and stable sadness would be associated with less stress and fewer health symptoms compared to anger. These associations were hypothesized to be more pronounced for older adults with generally low perceptions of control and who perceive lower-than-normal levels of control relative to older adults who generally perceive high or higher-than-normal levels of control, respectively. Community-dwelling older adults (n=178; 64- 98 years) completed a seven-day daily diary study. Each day, participants reported their most significant stressor, stressor-specific levels of sadness and anger, perceived levels of control, daily stress and health symptoms. Hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated main effects, linking sadness and, more strongly, anger intensity with elevated stress and health symptoms. The negative consequences of sadness intensity were dampened for participants with generally low, but not high, levels of control, but were amplified when adults faced less, compared to more, controllable stressors. The analyses further demonstrated a main effect of sadness variability, indicating that low, but not high, sadness variability predicted less stress. An interaction effect showed that anger variability predicted fewer health symptoms for adults with high control and high anger variability, exclusively. The results support the idea that discrete emotion intensity and variability have unique consequences on well-being and health, which are uniquely moderated by between- and within-person differences of perceived control.