Age-related positivity effect in autobiographical memory : a test of socioemotional selectivity theory and cognitive control theory

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This thesis examines age-related positivity effect in autobiographical memories. The goal was to gather further evidence to validate the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) and the Cognitive Control Theory (CCT) that explains why older adults would retrieve more positive and less negative memories when compared to younger adults. According to the SST, positivity effect in older adults occurs in view of their motivational shifts due to the limited time remaining in their life. Older adults work towards achieving their emotionally meaningful goals by recalling positive life experiences thus giving the positivity effect. The CCT, however, emphasises the importance of having sufficient cognitive resources, besides emotionally positive goals, to exercise cognitive control in order to achieve the positivity effect. Older adults with intact cognitive resources are more likely to direct their cognition towards recalling more positive memories. Because earlier studies mostly included Western and North European participants and produced contradictory findings, this thesis examines the plausibility of these two theories with samples taken from a non-Western country such as Malaysia. Six studies were conducted. Studies 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 examined the SST, while studies 2, 3, 4, and 5 tested the CCT. In all studies except Study 5, participants retrieved autobiographical memories in response to cue words. Four studies compared the content of autobiographical memories retrieved by younger and older adult participants (Studies 1, 4, 5, & 6). Study 2 only involved older adults with the aim to examine if their cognitive performances were correlated with memory elements that were judged positive or negative. Study 3 compared younger and older participants, but it did not investigate memory elements; it only examined the overall valence ratings of the memories. In validating the SST, contradictory findings were revealed. Study 1 provided evidence to support the SST as older adults retrieved more positive events and expressed more positive emotions in their memories compared to younger adults. Study 3, which examined autobiographical memories retrieved under divided and full attention conditions clearly failed to support the SST as under full attention condition there was no age difference in the average emotional ratings of the memories. Study 4 examined age-related positivity effect in voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memories, and did not find support for the SST as younger and older participants’ voluntary memories contained an almost equal number of positive and negative elements. Study 5 examined positivity effect in recent and remote autobiographical memories, which also did not lend support to the SST because older and younger adults were not different in terms of positive elements reported in both types of memories. Study 6, however, offered strong support for the SST in which younger and older adults’ memories were primed with either neutral or spiritual phrases. The memories retrieved by older adults, when primed with neutral phrases, contained more positive elements compared to the negative elements while for the younger adults, their memories contained similar positive and negative elements. The studies examining the validity of CCT (Studies 2, 3, 4 and 5) also provided some supportive evidence. Study 2, which involved only older adults, revealed a significant negative correlation between negative memory elements and short-term spatial memory, meaning that the poorer the cognitive control, the more negativity is in older adults’ autobiographical memories. However, this study did not show significant correlation between positive elements and executive function. In Study 3, the memories retrieved by older adults under divided attention condition were rated as less pleasant compared to the memories retrieved under full attention condition. The divided attention condition was synonymous with the impaired cognitive control. Study 4 also supported CCT in terms of negative elements; older adults retrieved more negative elements in their involuntary memories (allowed less cognitive control) compared to voluntary memories (allowed more cognitive control). Older adults’ voluntary memories, however, did not contain more positive elements than involuntary memories that were expected for the support of CCT. Study 5 lent support to the CCT because there was more positive elements in remote (permitted more cognitive control) than recent memories (permitted less cognitive control) retrieved by older adults. Finally, as the supports for SST and CCT were not undisputed, recommendations for further research were outlined.