The Theory Behind the Age-Related Positivity Effect

By Andrew E. Reed, L. Carstensen. Front. Psychology, 2012

695 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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 and 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.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, General Decision Sciences, Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f9d9f00f378cb5eb42e9b26062b2a14290f5508d

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

In General Decision Sciences

In Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience (2014, background): “The positivity effect has been documented across a variety of experimental paradigms and a wide range of stimuli, supporting the robustness of the effect (Reed and Carstensen, 2012).”
A lifespan perspective on emotion regulation, stress, and well-being in the workplace (2013, background): “positive material in older adults compared to younger adults (Reed & Carstensen, 2012).”
Meta-analysis of the age-related positivity effect: age differences in preferences for positive over negative information. (2014, methodology): “…cited empirical articles (e.g., Charles et al., 2003; Kensinger et al., 2002; Mather & Carstensen, 2003), early theoretical articles (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005; Mather & Carstensen, 2005), and recent review articles (Charles & Carstensen, 2010; Reed & Carstensen, 2012; Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010).”