Synonyms
Positivity effect
Definition
Age-related preference in attention and memory for positive over negative information.
Introduction
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...
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Reed, A.E., Carstensen, L.L. (2017). Age-Related Positivity Effect and Its Implications for Social and Health Gerontology. In: Pachana, N.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_50
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_50
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