The Oxford Handbook of Emotion, Social Cognition, and Problem Solving in Adulthood

Over the last decade, the field of socio-emotional development and aging has rapidly expanded, with many new theories and empirical findings emerging. This trend is consistent with the broader movement in psychology to consider social, motivational, and emotional influences on cognition and behavior.

The Oxford Handbook of Emotion, Social Cognition, and Problem Solving in Adulthood provides the first overview of a new field of adult development that has emerged out of conceptualizations and research at the intersections between socioemotional development, social cognition, emotion, coping, and everyday problem solving. This field roundly rejects a universal deficit model of aging, highlighting instead the dynamic nature of socio-emotional development and the differentiation of individual trajectories of development as a function of variation in contextual and experiential influences. It emphasizes the need for a cross-level examination (from biology and neuroscience to cognitive and social psychology) of the determinants of emotional and socio-emotional behavior. This volume also serves as a tribute to the late Fredda Blanchard-Fields, whose thinking and empirical research contributed extensively to a life-span developmental view of emotion, problem solving, and social cognition. Its chapters cover multiple aspects of adulthood and aging, presenting developmental perspectives on emotion; antecedents and consequences of emotion in context; everyday problem solving; social cognition; goals and goal-related behaviors; and wisdom. The landmark volume in this new field, The Oxford Handbook of Emotion, Social Cognition, and Problem Solving in Adulthood is an important resource for cognitive, developmental, and social psychologists, as well as researchers and graduate students in the field of aging, emotion studies, and social psychology.

Paul Verhaeghen, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is interested in working memory, attention, executive control, creativity, aging, and the interfaces between them.


Christopher K. Hertzog, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Georgia Institute of Technology. He specializes in adult development and aging, with an emphasis on understanding individual differences in cognitive changes in old age and variables that can help predict and explain successful cognitive aging, including health, lifestyle, and adaptive self-regulation.

1. Introduction
Paul Verhaeghen and Christopher K. Hertzog

Part One: Emotion during Adulthood

2. Older Adults' Perception of Social and Emotional Cues
Louise H. Phillips, Gillian Slessor, Phoebe E. Bailey, and Julie D. Henry

3. The Effects of Age on Memory for Socio-Emotional Material: An Affective Neuroscience Perspective
Elizabeth A. Kensinger, Eric R. Allard, and Anne C. Krendl

4. Age Changes in Facial Morphology, Emotional Communication, and Age Stereotyping
Mary Lee Hummert

5. Do Everyday Affective Experiences Differ Throughout Adulthood? A Review of Ambulatory-Assessment Evidence
Michaela Riediger and Antje Rauers

Part Two: Emotion in Context: Antecedents and Consequences

6. The Dynamics of Cognitive-Emotional Integration: Complexity and Hedonics in Emotional Development
Gisela Labouvie-Vief, Anne-Laure Gilet, and Nathalie Mell

7. Putting Emotional Aging in Context: Contextual Influences on Age-Related Changes in Emotion Regulation and Recognition
Jennifer Tehan Stanley and Derek M. Isaacowitz

8. Positive Emotions and Health in Adulthood and Later Life
Catherine Riffin, Anthony D. Ong, and C. S. Bergeman

9. Boundary Conditions for Emotional Well-being in Aging: The Importance of Daily Stress
Martin J. Sliwinski and Stacey B. Scott

10. Tasks, Capacities, and Tactics: A Skill-based Conceptualization of Emotion Regulation across the Lifespan
Nathan S. Consedine and Iris Mauss

11. Reconciling Cognitive Decline and Increased Well-being with Age: The Role of Increased Emotion Regulation Efficiency
Erin Senesac and Susanne Scheibe

Part Three: Everyday Problem Solving

12. Contextual Variation in Adults' Emotion Regulation During Everyday Problem Solving
Michelle A. Skinner, Cynthia A. Berg, and Bert N. Uchino

13. Goals and Strategies for Solving Interpersonal Everyday Problems across the Life Span
JoNell Strough and Emily J. Keener

14. Goals, Strategies, and Well-Being across Adulthood: Integrating Perspectives from the Coping and Everyday Problem-Solving Literatures
Abby Heckman Coats, Christiane Hoppmann, and Stacey B. Scott

Part Four: Social Cognition and Goals

15. My Heart Will Go On: Aging and Autonomic Nervous System Responding in Emotion
Michelle N. Shiota and Samantha L. Neufeld

16. Aging Influences on Judgment and Decision Processes: Interactions between Ability and Experience
Thomas M. Hess and Tara L. Queen

17. Wisdom and Emotions
Monika Ardelt and Michel Ferrari

18. Values across Adulthood: A Neglected Developmental Construct Guiding Thought and
Action over Time
Johannes O. Ritter and Alexandra M. Freund

19. Causal Attributions across the Adult Lifespan
Michelle Horhota, Andrew Mienaltowski, and Yiwei Chen

20. Stereotype threat in older adults: When and why does it occur and who is most affected?
Sarah J. Barber and Mara Mather