Remembering positive or relevant information? Cultural relevance may moderate the age-related positivity effect in memory.

Abstract

The age-related positivity effect might be driven by age differences in seeking emotional positivity or the meaning attached to positive information. To examine these 2 hypotheses, we recruited young and older Mainland Chinese adults to complete a recognition memory task, in which they viewed and recognized a series of pictures varying in emotional valence (neutral, positive, or negative) and cultural relevance (relevant to Chinese or Western culture). Participants were instructed to just view the pictures (Experiment 1), to focus on the emotional valence of the pictures (Experiment 2a), to focus on the cultural relevance of the pictures (Experiment 2b), or to focus on both (Experiment 2c). Because cultural relevance could alter the meaning of a picture without changing its emotional valence, the age-related positivity effect should not be moderated by cultural relevance if the effect is driven by age differences in seeking emotional positivity. In contrast, such a moderation effect should be detected if the age-related positivity effect is driven by age differences in seeking meaning. The results of Experiment 2b supported the latter speculation by finding an age-related positivity effect for Chinese pictures but not for Western pictures, although the other 3 experiments found an age-related positivity effect that was not moderated by cultural relevance. These results show that the motivation to seek meaning plays a role in the age-related positivity effect at least in certain situations. The cross-experiment divergencies of the results are discussed.

Evaluation of healthcare-related factors influencing mental health of Taiwanese citizens among different age groups

“…Unlike their successors, the older adults had gradually gone into retirement, and for the most part, their children had grown into adulthood. In other words, their burdens of family and work had gradually lessened, and thus they tended to experience “the age-related positivity effect”, an increasing focus on positive events and happy feelings 51 . In addition, generally speaking, individuals of the middle-aged and younger groups are likely to encounter work-family conflict causing fear, stress, loneliness, panic, depression, fear of worthlessness, etc 52 , 53 .…”

The Effects of Culture and View of Aging on Perspective Taking in Young Adults

“…Presumably, this was because unhealthy older adults found health-related information more personally relevant compared to the healthy older adults. Gong and Fung ( 2020 ) additionally experimentally manipulated participants’ ratings of personal relevance or meaningfulness of the stimuli in relation to emotional memory. Through a series of experiments, they found support for a culture-based positivity effect only when participants were specifically instructed to focus their attention on culture rather than on the emotional valence of the stimuli.…”