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Laura L. Carstensen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Positivity Effect: a negativity bias in youth fades with age
Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 2017Co-Authors: Laura L. Carstensen, Marguerite DeliemaAbstract:Relative to younger adults, older adults attend to and remember positive information more than negative information. This shift from a negativity bias in younger age to a preference for positive information in later life is termed the ‘Positivity Effect.’ Based on nearly two decades of research and recent evidence from neuroscience, we argue that the Effect reflects age-related changes in motivation that direct behavior and cognitive processing rather than neural or cognitive decline. Understanding the Positivity Effect, including conditions that reduce and enhance it, can inform Effective public health and educational messages directed at older people.
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Age-Related Positivity Effect and Its Implications for Social and Health Gerontology
Encyclopedia of Geropsychology, 2015Co-Authors: Andrew E. Reed, Laura L. CarstensenAbstract:Aging has long been associated with sadness, fear, and loss. From the downtrodden visage of Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” to the incompetent shenanigans of TV’s Mr. Magoo, older adults have been depicted as depressed and cognitively impaired, and negative stereotypes of aging are ubiquitous. Recent empirical evidence, however, has revealed that older adults experience more positive and fewer negative emotions in their daily lives compared to younger adults (for a review, see Charles and Carstensen (2010)). Older adults also appear to favor positive over negative information in attention and memory compared to younger adults, a developmental phenomenon known as the age-related Positivity Effect. This entry provides an overview of the empirical origins and theoretical foundations of the Positivity Effect, the debates concerning its underlying mechanisms, the moderators of the Effect, and open questions for future research in this area. Implications of the Positivity Effect for social behavior and well-being in later life are discussed.
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The theory behind the age-related Positivity Effect.
Frontiers in psychology, 2012Co-Authors: Andrew E. Reed, Laura L. CarstensenAbstract:The “Positivity Effect” refers to an age-related trend that favors positive over negative stimuli in cognitive processing. Relative to their younger counterparts, older people attend to and remember more positive than negative information. Since the Effect was initially identified and the conceptual basis articulated (Mather & Carstensen, 2005) scores of independent replications and related findings have appeared in the literature. Over the same period, a number of investigations have failed to observe age differences in the cognitive processing of emotional material. When findings are considered in theoretical context, a reliable pattern of evidence emerges that helps to refine conceptual tenets. In this article we articulate the operational definition and theoretical foundations of the Positivity Effect and review the empirical evidence based on studies of visual attention, memory, decision-making, and neural activation. We conclude with a discussion of future research directions with emphasis on the conditions where a focus on positive information may benefit and/or impair cognitive performance in older people.
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replicating the Positivity Effect in picture memory in koreans evidence for cross cultural generalizability
Psychology and Aging, 2009Co-Authors: Yookyung Kwon, Susanne Scheibe, Gregory R Samanezlarkin, Jeanne L Tsai, Laura L. CarstensenAbstract:Older adults' relatively better memory for positive over negative material (Positivity Effect) has been widely observed in Western samples. This study examined whether a relative preference for positive over negative material is also observed in older Koreans. Younger and older Korean participants viewed images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), were tested for recall and recognition of the images, and rated the images for valence. Cultural differences in the valence ratings of images emerged. Once considered, the relative preference for positive over negative material in memory observed in older Koreans was indistinguishable from that observed previously in older Americans.
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aging and motivated cognition the Positivity Effect in attention and memory
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2005Co-Authors: Mara Mather, Laura L. CarstensenAbstract:As people get older, they experience fewer negative emotions. Strategic processes in older adults' emotional attention and memory might play a role in this variation with age. Older adults show more emotionally gratifying memory distortion for past choices and autobiographical information than younger adults do. In addition, when shown stimuli that vary in affective valence, positive items account for a larger proportion of older adults' subsequent memories than those of younger adults. This Positivity Effect in older adults' memories seems to be due to their greater focus on emotion regulation and to be implemented by cognitive control mechanisms that enhance positive and diminish negative information. These findings suggest that both cognitive abilities and motivation contribute to older adults' improved emotion regulation.
Mara Mather - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Thinking about a limited future enhances the Positivity of younger and older adults’ recall: Support for socioemotional selectivity theory
Memory & Cognition, 2016Co-Authors: Sarah J. Barber, Michiko Sakaki, Philipp C. Opitz, Bruna Martins, Mara MatherAbstract:Compared with younger adults, older adults have a relative preference to attend to and remember positive over negative information. This is known as the “Positivity Effect,” and researchers have typically evoked socioemotional selectivity theory to explain it. According to socioemotional selectivity theory, as people get older they begin to perceive their time left in life as more limited. These reduced time horizons prompt older adults to prioritize achieving emotional gratification and thus exhibit increased Positivity in attention and recall. Although this is the most commonly cited explanation of the Positivity Effect, there is currently a lack of clear experimental evidence demonstrating a link between time horizons and Positivity. The goal of the current research was to address this issue. In two separate experiments, we asked participants to complete a writing activity, which directed them to think of time as being either limited or expansive (Experiments 1 and 2 ) or did not orient them to think about time in a particular manner (Experiment 2 ). Participants were then shown a series of emotional pictures, which they subsequently tried to recall. Results from both studies showed that regardless of chronological age, thinking about a limited future enhanced the relative Positivity of participants’ recall. Furthermore, the results of Experiment 2 showed that this Effect was not driven by changes in mood. Thus, the fact that older adults’ recall is typically more positive than younger adults’ recall may index naturally shifting time horizons and goals with age.
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Amygdala functional connectivity with medial prefrontal cortex at rest predicts the Positivity Effect in older adults' memory
Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 2013Co-Authors: Michiko Sakaki, Lin Nga, Mara MatherAbstract:As people get older, they tend to remember more positive than negative information. This age-by-valence interaction has been called "Positivity Effect." The current study addressed the hypotheses that baseline functional connectivity at rest is predictive of older adults' brain activity when learning emotional information and their Positivity Effect in memory. Using fMRI, we examined the relationship among resting-state functional connectivity, subsequent brain activity when learning emotional faces, and individual differences in the Positivity Effect the relative tendency to remember faces expressing positive vs. negative emotions. Consistent with our hypothesis, older adults with a stronger Positivity Effect had increased functional coupling between amygdala and medial PFC MPFC during rest. In contrast, younger adults did not show the association between resting connectivity and memory Positivity. A similar age-by-memory Positivity interaction was also found when learning emotional faces. That is, memory Positivity in older adults was associated with a enhanced MPFC activity when learning emotional faces and b increased negative functional coupling between amygdala and MPFC when learning negative faces. In contrast, memory Positivity in younger adults was related to neither enhanced MPFC activity to emotional faces, nor MPFC-amygdala connectivity to negative faces. Furthermore, stronger MPFC-amygdala connectivity during rest was predictive of subsequent greater MPFC activity when learning emotional faces. Thus, emotion-memory interaction in older adults depends not only on the task-related brain activity but also on the baseline functional connectivity.
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Aging and goal-directed emotional attention: distraction reverses emotional biases.
Emotion, 2007Co-Authors: Marisa Knight, Travis L. Seymour, Joshua T. Gaunt, Christopher A. Baker, Kathryn Nesmith, Mara MatherAbstract:Previous findings reveal that older adults favor positive over negative stimuli in both memory and attention (for a review, see Mather & Carstensen, 2005). This study used eye tracking to investigate the role of cognitive control in older adults' selective visual attention. Younger and older adults viewed emotional-neutral and emotional-emotional pairs of faces and pictures while their gaze patterns were recorded under full or divided attention conditions. Replicating previous eye-tracking findings, older adults allocated less of their visual attention to negative stimuli in negative-neutral stimulus pairings in the full attention condition than younger adults did. However, as predicted by a cognitive-control-based account of the Positivity Effect in older adults' information processing tendencies (Mather & Knight, 2005), older adults' tendency to avoid negative stimuli was reversed in the divided attention condition. Compared with younger adults, older adults' limited attentional resources were more likely to be drawn to negative stimuli when they were distracted. These findings indicate that emotional goals can have unintended consequences when cognitive control mechanisms are not fully available.
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aging and motivated cognition the Positivity Effect in attention and memory
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2005Co-Authors: Mara Mather, Laura L. CarstensenAbstract:As people get older, they experience fewer negative emotions. Strategic processes in older adults' emotional attention and memory might play a role in this variation with age. Older adults show more emotionally gratifying memory distortion for past choices and autobiographical information than younger adults do. In addition, when shown stimuli that vary in affective valence, positive items account for a larger proportion of older adults' subsequent memories than those of younger adults. This Positivity Effect in older adults' memories seems to be due to their greater focus on emotion regulation and to be implemented by cognitive control mechanisms that enhance positive and diminish negative information. These findings suggest that both cognitive abilities and motivation contribute to older adults' improved emotion regulation.
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the role of motivation in the age related Positivity Effect in autobiographical memory
Psychological Science, 2004Co-Authors: Quinn Kennedy, Mara Mather, Laura L. CarstensenAbstract:This study reveals that older adults have a Positivity Effect in long-term autobiographical memory and that a Positivity bias can be induced in younger adults by a heightened motivation to regulate current emotional well-being. Three hundred nuns, ages 47 to 102 years, recalled personal information originally reported 14 years earlier. They did so under experimental conditions that repeatedly primed them to focus on their current emotional states or on their memory accuracy, or that provided no instructional focus (control condition). Both older control participants and participants who were focused on emotional states showed a tendency to remember the past more positively than they originally reported in 1987. In contrast, both younger control participants and participants who were focused on accuracy tended to remember the past more negatively than originally reported.
Derek M. Isaacowitz - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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cultural differences in the age related Positivity Effect distinguishing between preference and Effectiveness
Emotion, 2019Co-Authors: Helene H. Fung, Xianmin Gong, Nhi Ngo, Derek M. IsaacowitzAbstract:Prior studies have found mixed results regarding whether there are cultural differences in the age-related Positivity Effect, defined as older adults' showing a greater bias in cognitive processing for positively over negatively and neutrally valenced information relative to younger adults. This study attempted to address this controversy by examining visual attention toward culturally relevant versus irrelevant pictures that differed in valence among younger and older U.S. Americans and Hong Kong Chinese. Preferences (attentional biases toward particular valence) and Effectiveness (whether the attentional biases are associated with better mood) were also distinguished. Findings revealed that regardless of cultural relevance of the pictures, older U.S. Americans showed more gaze preference for positive over negative pictures compared to their younger counterparts; this age difference was not found among Hong Kong Chinese. In contrast, older Hong Kong Chinese showed better mood as a function of more gaze preference for positive over negative pictures. Younger Hong Kong Chinese and younger and older U.S. Americans did not show this association. The results suggest that an age-related Positivity Effect exists at the preference level for U.S. Americans but at the Effectiveness level for Chinese. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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The Role of Dispositional Reappraisal in the Age-Related Positivity Effect
The journals of gerontology. Series B Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2010Co-Authors: Helene H. Fung, Derek M. IsaacowitzAbstract:Objectives. This study aimed to clarify mixed findings about whether older adults have a cognitive bias toward positive and/or away from negative information (the Positivity Effect) by examining whether dispositional cognitive reappraisal (a disposition to reinterpret an event to lessen its negative emotional impact) could moderate this Effect. Methods. Participants from 19 to 79 years old watched a video that simultaneously showed a positive and a negative image. Two layers of their emotion regulation process, attention (measured by percent fixation duration) and cognitive effort (measured by pupil dilation), toward each image were recorded. One dispositional emotion regulation strategy, dispositional cognitive reappraisal, was also assessed. Results. In general, older age was related to less percent fixation duration but not to differential pupil dilation toward the negative image. However, among those with higher dispositional cognitive reappraisal, older age was related to smaller pupil dilation for the negative image.
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Feeling happy and sad, but only seeing the positive: Poignancy and the Positivity Effect in attention
Motivation and Emotion, 2009Co-Authors: Hal Ersner-hershfield, David S. Carvel, Derek M. IsaacowitzAbstract:Poignancy is a mixed emotional experience that occurs in the face of meaningful endings (Ersner-Hershfield et al. J Pers Soc Psychol 94(1):158–167, 2008 ). Despite documentation of the phenomenological component of poignancy, no study to date has examined the relationship between such a state and information processing. We therefore examined the link between poignancy and attentional patterns using an eyetracking paradigm. To induce poignancy, experimental condition participants imagined being in a personally chosen meaningful location for a final time; control participants also imagined being in a meaningful location but with no ending. After, both groups were shown emotional images. Experimental condition participants looked more at positive images relative to negative images, whereas participants in the control condition did not display such a preference. Findings suggest that despite being a mixed emotional experience, poignancy may produce a subsequent Positivity Effect in information processing.
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are preferences in emotional processing affected by distraction examining the age related Positivity Effect in visual fixation within a dual task paradigm
Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, 2008Co-Authors: Eric S Allard, Derek M. IsaacowitzAbstract:Recent research has suggested that age-related Positivity Effects are eliminated under conditions of dual-task load (Knight et al., 2007, Emotion, 7, 705; Mather & Knight, 2005, Psychology and Aging, 20, 554), because the cognitive control resources necessary to enact such preferences are not available when individuals are distracted by competing information. We further examined how older adults' emotional information processing preferences are affected by distracting information by utilizing a within-subjects dual-task measure. Younger and older adults viewed a series of positive, negative, and neutral images both in conditions of full and divided attention. Fixation preferences to valenced images were assessed through eye tracking. Regardless of whether images were viewed in full or divided attention conditions, older adults demonstrated a preference in their fixation for positive and neutral in comparison to negative images. These results provide evidence that older adults' positive fixation preferences may not always necessitate full, cognitive control.
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Is there an age-related Positivity Effect in visual attention? A comparison of two methodologies.
Emotion (Washington D.C.), 2006Co-Authors: Derek M. Isaacowitz, Heather A. Wadlinger, Deborah Goren, Hugh R. WilsonAbstract:Research suggests a Positivity Effect in older adults' memory for emotional material, but the evidence from the attentional domain is mixed. The present study combined 2 methodologies for studying preferences in visual attention, eye tracking, and dot-probe, as younger and older adults viewed synthetic emotional faces. Eye tracking most consistently revealed a Positivity Effect in older adults' attention, so that older adults showed preferential looking toward happy faces and away from sad faces. Dot-probe results were less robust, but in the same direction. Methodological and theoretical implications for the study of socioemotional aging are discussed.
Helene H. Fung - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Remembering positive or relevant information? Cultural relevance may moderate the age-related Positivity Effect in memory.
Psychology and aging, 2020Co-Authors: Xianmin Gong, Helene H. FungAbstract:The age-related Positivity Effect might be driven by age differences in seeking emotional Positivity or the meaning attached to positive information. To examine these 2 hypotheses, we recruited young and older Mainland Chinese adults to complete a recognition memory task, in which they viewed and recognized a series of pictures varying in emotional valence (neutral, positive, or negative) and cultural relevance (relevant to Chinese or Western culture). Participants were instructed to just view the pictures (Experiment 1), to focus on the emotional valence of the pictures (Experiment 2a), to focus on the cultural relevance of the pictures (Experiment 2b), or to focus on both (Experiment 2c). Because cultural relevance could alter the meaning of a picture without changing its emotional valence, the age-related Positivity Effect should not be moderated by cultural relevance if the Effect is driven by age differences in seeking emotional Positivity. In contrast, such a moderation Effect should be detected if the age-related Positivity Effect is driven by age differences in seeking meaning. The results of Experiment 2b supported the latter speculation by finding an age-related Positivity Effect for Chinese pictures but not for Western pictures, although the other 3 experiments found an age-related Positivity Effect that was not moderated by cultural relevance. These results show that the motivation to seek meaning plays a role in the age-related Positivity Effect at least in certain situations. The cross-experiment divergencies of the results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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cultural differences in the age related Positivity Effect distinguishing between preference and Effectiveness
Emotion, 2019Co-Authors: Helene H. Fung, Xianmin Gong, Nhi Ngo, Derek M. IsaacowitzAbstract:Prior studies have found mixed results regarding whether there are cultural differences in the age-related Positivity Effect, defined as older adults' showing a greater bias in cognitive processing for positively over negatively and neutrally valenced information relative to younger adults. This study attempted to address this controversy by examining visual attention toward culturally relevant versus irrelevant pictures that differed in valence among younger and older U.S. Americans and Hong Kong Chinese. Preferences (attentional biases toward particular valence) and Effectiveness (whether the attentional biases are associated with better mood) were also distinguished. Findings revealed that regardless of cultural relevance of the pictures, older U.S. Americans showed more gaze preference for positive over negative pictures compared to their younger counterparts; this age difference was not found among Hong Kong Chinese. In contrast, older Hong Kong Chinese showed better mood as a function of more gaze preference for positive over negative pictures. Younger Hong Kong Chinese and younger and older U.S. Americans did not show this association. The results suggest that an age-related Positivity Effect exists at the preference level for U.S. Americans but at the Effectiveness level for Chinese. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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The role of instrumentality of emotion in the age-related Positivity Effect.
Emotion (Washington D.C.), 2019Co-Authors: Helene H. FungAbstract:Prior literature has debated over whether the age-related Positivity Effect, defined as older adults showing a greater bias in cognitive processing for positively over negatively valenced information relative to younger adults, is goal-driven. This study attempted to directly address this debate by disentangling the influences of valence alone and the instrumentality of emotion on visual attention toward valenced stimuli. We reasoned that if the age-related Positivity Effect was goal-driven, it would be reversed, that is, older adults would pay more attention to anger-related than happiness-related stimuli when anger was made instrumental for the context. Eye-tracking findings generally support this hypothesis, suggesting that as we age, we selectively prioritize stimuli that are useful to us, not necessarily pleasant stimuli, in cognitive processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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The Role of Dispositional Reappraisal in the Age-Related Positivity Effect
The journals of gerontology. Series B Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2010Co-Authors: Helene H. Fung, Derek M. IsaacowitzAbstract:Objectives. This study aimed to clarify mixed findings about whether older adults have a cognitive bias toward positive and/or away from negative information (the Positivity Effect) by examining whether dispositional cognitive reappraisal (a disposition to reinterpret an event to lessen its negative emotional impact) could moderate this Effect. Methods. Participants from 19 to 79 years old watched a video that simultaneously showed a positive and a negative image. Two layers of their emotion regulation process, attention (measured by percent fixation duration) and cognitive effort (measured by pupil dilation), toward each image were recorded. One dispositional emotion regulation strategy, dispositional cognitive reappraisal, was also assessed. Results. In general, older age was related to less percent fixation duration but not to differential pupil dilation toward the negative image. However, among those with higher dispositional cognitive reappraisal, older age was related to smaller pupil dilation for the negative image.
Pascale Piolino - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Positivity bias in aging: Motivation or degradation?
Emotion, 2016Co-Authors: Sandrine Kalenzaga, Virginie Lamidey, Anne-marie Ergis, David Clarys, Pascale PiolinoAbstract:The question of an emotional memory enhancement in aging, and of a Positivity bias in particular, has been the subject of numerous empirical studies in the last decade. However, the roots of such positive preference are not yet well established. Partisans of a motivation-based perspective contend with those arguing that Positivity is related to a cognitive or neural degradation. The aim of this study was to introduce some elements concerning Positivity Effect in aging. We compared immediate (i.e., immediate recall) versus delayed (i.e., delayed recall and recognition) emotional memory performance in 38 young adults, 39 old adults, 37 very old adults, and 41 Alzheimer’s disease patients. Moreover, we manipulated the encoding instruction: Either participants received no particular processing instruction, or they had to process the material in a semantic way. The results indicated that the Positivity bias is most likely to occur in individuals whose cognitive functions are preserved, after long retention delay, and in experimental conditions that do not constrain encoding. We concluded by highlighting that although these findings seem to be better in line with the motivation, rather than the degradation, perspective, they do not fully support either theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
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Self-reference Effect on memory in healthy aging, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease: Influence of identity valence
Cortex, 2015Co-Authors: Mona Leblond, Virginie Lamidey, Pascale Piolino, Mickaël Laisney, Stéphanie Egret, De La Sayette, Gaël Chételat, Géraldine Rauchs, Béatrice Desgranges, Francis EustacheAbstract:The self-reference Effect (SRE) has been shown to benefit episodic memory in healthy individuals. In healthy aging, its preservation is acknowledged, but in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the jury is still out. Furthermore, there has yet to be a study of the SRE in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). As self-reference implies subjective self-representations, and positive information enhance memory performance, we set out to examine the Effects of 1) material and 2) identity valence on the SRE across the early stages of AD. Twenty healthy older individuals and 40 patients (20 diagnosed with aMCI and 20 diagnosed with mild AD) performed a memory task. Participants had to judge positive and negative personality trait adjectives with reference to themselves or to another person, or else process these adjectives semantically. We then administered a recognition task. Participants also completed a questionnaire on identity valence. Among healthy older individuals, the SRE benefited episodic memory independently of material and identity valence. By contrast, among aMCI patients, we only observed the SRE when the material was positive. When self-referential material was negative, patients’ performance depended on the valence of their self-representations: negative self-representations correlated with poor recognition of negative self-referential adjectives. Finally, performance of patients with mild AD by condition and material valence were too low and inappropriate to be subjected to relevant analyses. The persistence of an SRE for positive adjectives in aMCI suggests the existence of a Positivity Effect for self-related information, which contributes to wellbeing. The absence of an SRE for negative adjectives, which led aMCI patients to dismiss negative self-related information, could be due to low self-esteem. These results corroborate the mnenic neglect model and point out the importance of the psychoaffective dimension in patients with aMCI, which could constitute a major factor for the preservation of their self-esteem and self-related memory. Keywords: self-reference Effect; Positivity Effect; episodic memory; amnestic mild cognitive impairment; Alzheimer’s disease