AFFECT AND AGE - CROSS-SECTIONAL COMPARISONS OF STRUCTURE AND PREVALENCE

The self-reports of 207 young-adult (ages 18-30), 231 middle-aged (age s 31-59), and 828 older-adult (age 60 and over) Ss were used to study the structure of affect. Affects were represented by terms included in various circumplex arrays of emotions as presented by previous invest igators. A set of 46 affects was subjected to exploratory analysis, an d a final set of 38 affects was subjected to confirmatory factor analy sis. The goodness of fit of each group's factor loadings to the hypoth esized factors of positive affect, depression, anxiety-guilt, contentm ent, hostility, and shyness was not up to the desired.90 level, and so me significant differences in factor structure were observed for each age-group comparison. There were few age differences in levels of posi tive affect. Depression was most frequent among younger Ss and least f requent among older Ss. Younger Ss were most often anxious and shy. Ol der Ss were most often content and least often hostile.