Societal and political changes mean that individuals are working until later in life, leading to interest in whether older workers' effectiveness differs from that of younger workers. An important predictor of work effectiveness is ‘interpersonal emotion regulation’, that is, the management of others' feelings. However, little is known so far about whether there are age-related changes in interpersonal emotion regulation ability. In this article, I apply theoretical evidence about aging to a model of the composite tasks involved in interpersonal emotion regulation, in order to form predictions about age-related differences in the management of others' feelings. I further review the existing empirical evidence base, to highlight areas where predictions are supported and areas where further research is needed. It is hoped that this article will guide future empirical work in this important area, in order to broaden the evidence base on age and emotion regulation.

社会和政治变化意味着个人要工作到晚年，这引起了人们对老年工人的效率是否与年轻工人不同的兴趣。工作效率的一个重要预测指标是“人际情绪调节”，即对他人情绪的管理。然而，目前对于人际情绪调节能力是否存在与年龄相关的变化知之甚少。在本文中，我将有关衰老的理论证据应用于涉及人际情绪调节的复合任务模型，以预测与年龄相关的他人情绪管理差异。我进一步回顾了现有的经验证据基础，以突出支持预测的领域和需要进一步研究的领域。