Positivity Effect
Older adults prefer positive information over negative information in memory and decision-making.
The positivity effect (also called Pollyanna principle in related contexts) refers to the tendency for people, especially older adults, to give more attention to and better remember positive stimuli than negative ones. Research by Laura Carstensen suggests this reflects a motivational shift: as people age and perceive their future time as limited, they prioritize emotionally meaningful and positive experiences.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life Grandparent Memories Older adults tend to remember the good times of their life more vividly than the bad, and prefer to spend time on activities and relationships they find emotionally rewarding rather than novel but uncertain ones.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
While watching the evening news, an older woman remembers a heartwarming story about a rescued dog but struggles to recall the details of a report on a local factory closing.
An older volunteer at a museum fondly describes the successful fundraising gala from two seasons ago, while rarely mentioning the poorly attended exhibit that followed.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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