Limited Time Horizons Lead to the Positivity Effect in Attention, but Not to More Positive Emotions: An Investigation of the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

• Published in: Psychology and aging Vol. 39; no. 1; pp. 46 - 58
• Main Authors: Zsoldos, Isabella, Hot, Pascal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Psychological Association 01-02-2024
• Subjects: Aged; Aging - psychology; Attention; Attentional Bias; Emotional States; Emotions; Female; Human; Humans; Male; Older Adulthood; Older people; Positive Emotions; Positivism; Reaction Time; Stimulus; Theories; Time Factors; Time Perception; Time Perspective; Young adults; attentional deployment; emotion regulation; aging; automatic processes; future time perspective
• ISSN: 0882-7974; 1939-1498
• DOI: 10.1037/pag0000781

A positivity effect in attention (i.e., an attentional bias in favor of positive over negative stimuli) has been frequently reported in older adults. Based on the postulates of socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), the present study tested whether this positivity effect: (a) depends on the subjective perception of a limited future time perspective (FTP) independently of chronological age, (b) involves controlled processes, and (c) contributes to optimizing positive emotions. Thirty-one older adults (aged 75-93) and 92 younger adults (aged 18-23) were recruited. Young adults were divided into a control group (N = 52) and a group with limited FTP (N = 40), where their subjective perception of the time left to live was experimentally reduced. All participants performed a dot-probe task involving positive, negative and neutral pictures displayed with different presentation durations (500 ms, 1,000 ms). Reaction time bias scores were calculated, and emotional state was measured several times during the task. Analyses revealed attentional biases toward positive (compared to negative) pictures in older adults and young adults with limited FTP, but not in young adults in the control group. These positivity effects appeared from 500 ms of stimulus presentation, did not increase over time, and did not correlate with participants' emotions. These findings support SST predictions that positivity effects occur when individuals perceive a limited FTP, regardless of their actual age. However, our data also suggest that the positivity effect may be a more automatic than controlled process that does not influence emotional state.
Public Significance Statement
The present study investigated the positivity effect, that is, the tendency of older adults (aged 60 and over) to direct their attention more toward positive than negative information. Our results suggest that the positivity effect is an automatic phenomenon that appears when individuals perceive that they have little time left to live (regardless of their actual age), but it does not help them to feel more positive emotions.