Redemptive processing of impactful COVID-19 experiences predicts well-being among older but not younger adults

People engage in autobiographical reasoning to make sense of major life events. This study examined whether younger and older adults utilized different autobiographical reasoning strategies to make sense of highly emotional and impactful experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that older adults would show higher levels of redemptive processing, younger adults would show higher levels of exploratory processing, and that these respective processes would be associated with well-being for each group. Two samples of younger (n = 245; ages 17–22) and older (n = 224; ages 55–83) adults provided written narratives about their most impactful positive and negative experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic and responded to a questionnaire assessing well-being. We found that younger and older adults did not differ in their use of exploratory and redemptive processing. Redemptive processing was uniquely predictive of well-being among older adults, although this relationship disappeared when positive and negative events were considered independently. These results suggest that the ability to positively reframe COVID-related events could be particularly important for the well-being of older adults.