Although emotions have been widely studied, researchers have rarely focused on the elderly. Consequently, many questions remain unanswered concerning the emotions of older adults. This study examined age differences in emotional intensity of short- and long-term emotion. Older adults (N=61) and younger adult college students (N=93) completed the Survey of the Quality of Life of Adult Men and Women and rated positive and negative aspects of 38 cartoons which represented a wide range of aggression, humor, and subject matter. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed no differences between younger and older subjects for positive emotion. For negative emotion, the young reported more intense long-term emotion than did the elderly. Older males, however, reported more short-term negative emotion than did younger males. The study revealed neither a simple trend toward negative emotion nor a general flattening of emotions with advanced age. (Author/NB)