Linking the Positivity Effect in Attention with Affective Outcomes: Age Group Differences and the Role of Arousal.

Cathleen Kappes,Kezia L Droste,Berit Streubel,Kristian Folta-Schoofs

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01877

Cathleen Kappes, Kezia L Droste + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01877

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Abstract

Despite its assumed importance for emotional well-being, studies investigating the positivity effect (PE) in older adults’ information processing rarely tested its relationship with immediate or general affective outcome measures like emotional reactivity or emotional well-being. Moreover, the arousal level of the to-be-processed emotional stimuli has rarely been taken into account as a moderator for the occurrence of the PE and its relationship with affective outcomes. Age group differences (young vs. old) in attention (i.e., fixation durations using eye tracking) and subjective emotional reactions (i.e., pleasantness ratings) were investigated in response to picture stimuli systematically varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (low vs. high). We examined whether there is a link between age group differences in fixation durations and affective outcomes (i.e., subjective emotional reactions as well as emotional well-being). Older compared to young adults fixated less on the most emotional part in negative but not in positive low-arousing pictures. This age difference did not occur under high arousal. While age group differences in fixation duration did not translate into age group differences in subjective emotional reactions, we found a positive relationship between fixation duration on negative low-arousing pictures and emotional well-being, i.e., negative affect. The present study replicated the well-known PE in attention and emotional reactivity. In line with the idea that the PE reflects top-down-driven processing of affective information, age group differences in fixation durations decreased under high arousal. The present findings are consistent with the idea that age-related changes in the processing of emotional information support older adults’ general emotional well-being.

Highlights

Older adults are thought to increasingly encounter losses in several life domains (Heckhausen et al, 1989; Baltes and Smith, 2003; Mustaficand Freund, 2012), they are still capable of maintaining relatively high levels of emotional well-being (Fiske et al, 2009; Charles and Carstensen, 2010; Wolitzky-Taylor et al, 2010; Scheibe and Carstensen, 2010; Carstensen et al, 2011)
We further examined a possible role of arousal for age group differences in attention and affective outcomes
We examined the correspondence of age group differences in both affective outcome measures with age group differences in areas of interest (AOI)-related fixations

Summary

Introduction

Older adults are thought to increasingly encounter losses in several life domains (Heckhausen et al, 1989; Baltes and Smith, 2003; Mustaficand Freund, 2012), they are still capable of maintaining relatively high levels of emotional well-being (Fiske et al, 2009; Charles and Carstensen, 2010; Wolitzky-Taylor et al, 2010; Scheibe and Carstensen, 2010; Carstensen et al, 2011). Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST; Carstensen et al, 1999, 2006; Carstensen, 2006), a prominent theory of emotional aging, posits that older adults are motivated to optimize their current affective experience and emotional well-being due to limits in future time. The so-called “positivity effect” has been introduced as an important mechanism to explain the maintenance of emotional well-being among older adults. The term “positivity effect” (PE) refers to “a relative preference in older adults (compared to younger adults) for positive over negative material in cognitive processing” Within the framework of SST it is argued that the PE in older adults’ information processing reflects the recruitment of goal-directed, top-down driven processes in order to enhance, maintain or restore positive affective experience (Reed and Carstensen, 2012). The PE has been demonstrated in attention and memory using a wide range of experimental paradigms (e.g., eye tracking: Isaacowitz et al, 2006a,b; attention: Mather and Carstensen, 2003; and memory: Kennedy et al, 2004; Mikels et al, 2005; Mammarella et al, 2016; for a recent meta-analysis see Reed et al, 2014)

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