The Positivity Effect In Aging

The positivity effect in aging

It’s commonly known that cognitive as well as physiological processes decline with age that result in worse memory performance. Certain models such as node structure theory are used to explain effects like tip-of-the-tongue that occur frequently in older people. I wanted to discuss the role that emotional aspects of memory play in memory performance in older people, specifically with regard to the positivity effect. In particular, there seem to be several views on the role of the positivity effect on memory performance in later life. On one hand some argue that the positivity effect is a result of natural phenomenon that occur as people get older, specifically the need to achieve emotional satisfaction.

In particular, a study done by English, T., & Carstensen, L. L. (2015) examines the role that personal relevance plays in analyzing a decision. They theorized that although the socioemotional selectivity theory increases the importance of emotional goals, these goals can be changed if the situation is of great personal relevance. They found that the positivity effect greatly disappears for adults who were in “poor health” vs those in good health who had to make decisions that were “health-related” as opposed to non health related. “Consistent with past findings (Löckenhoff & Carstensen, 2007, 2008), when relatively healthy adults were faced with health-related decisions, we found the typical age-related positivity effect in review. As expected, however, positivity was reduced among adults in relatively poor health when making health-related decisions. These participants viewed health-related information in a relatively balanced manner, regardless of age.” (English, T., & Carstensen, L. L. (2015)) They also found that the positivity effect resurfaces when decisions are not health related. They seem to argue that as people age, if they are in a situation that requires them to make a judgement that has great personal relevance, cognitive resources will be used up in a way that isn’t based off of achieving emotional satisfaction. Another interpretation of this could be that typically older people have emotional goals, but there are cases where they will care about different goals if it weighs heavily on them. Based on this it seems that that motivations can be used as a tool to allow older adults to control the positivity