Department of Psychology.
Department of Psychology, DePaul University.
Psychol Aging. 2014 Mar;29(1):1-15. doi: 10.1037/a0035194.
In contrast to long-held axioms of old age as a time of "doom and gloom," mounting evidence indicates an age-related positivity effect in attention and memory. However, several studies report inconsistent findings that raise critical questions about the effect's reliability, robustness, and potential moderators. To address these questions, we conducted a systematic meta-analysis of 100 empirical studies of the positivity effect (N = 7,129). Results indicate that the positivity effect is reliable and moderated by theoretically implicated methodological and sample characteristics. The positivity effect is larger in studies that do not constrain (vs. constrain) cognitive processing-reflecting older adults' natural information processing preferences-and in studies incorporating wider (vs. narrower) age comparisons. Analyses indicated that older adults show a significant information processing bias toward positive versus negative information, whereas younger adults show the opposite pattern. We discuss implications of these findings for theoretical perspectives on emotion-cognition interactions across the adult life span and suggest future research directions.
与长期以来将老年视为“厄运和沮丧”的观念相反，越来越多的证据表明，注意力和记忆与年龄相关的积极效应。然而，有几项研究报告了不一致的发现，这些发现对该效应的可靠性、稳健性和潜在的调节因素提出了质疑。为了解决这些问题，我们对 100 项关于积极效应的实证研究进行了系统的元分析（N=7129）。结果表明，积极效应是可靠的，并受到理论上涉及的方法学和样本特征的调节。在不限制（与限制）认知加工的研究中，以及在纳入更广泛（与更窄）年龄比较的研究中，积极效应更大。分析表明，老年人对积极信息比对消极信息有明显的信息处理偏向，而年轻人则表现出相反的模式。我们讨论了这些发现对整个成年期情感-认知相互作用的理论观点的意义，并提出了未来的研究方向。
