Getting Older Provides Positive Outlook

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Getting Older Provides Positive Outlook

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070322160642.htm

Research conducted at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

proves not everything goes downhill when it comes to aging.

Older adults exhibit a better balance than younger adults in the way

they process emotional information from the environment, according

to research completed by Kisley, assistant professor,

Psychology, along with his collaborator, Stacey Wood from Scripps

College and with the assistance of students at UCCS.

More than 150 participants viewed images determined to be positive

(a bowl of chocolate ice cream, pretty sunsets), neutral (a chair, a

fork) and negative (a dead cat in the road, a car crash). Viewing

images for only seconds, participants clicked a mouse to categorize

these photographs while their brain reaction was monitored.

" Whereas younger adults often pay more attention to emotionally

negative information, older adults tend to assign equal importance

to emotionally positive information, " explained Kisley. " This has

implications for many domains including, for example, decision

making. "

" Like previous studies, we found that younger adults, 18-25, tended

to pay more attention to emotionally negative images than to

positive ones, " Kisley said. " But the new finding from our study was

that the older adults, ages 55 plus, didn't show this so-

called 'negative bias.' Instead they tended to show a better balance

between paying attention to both negative and positive images. "

Kisley and Wood conducted a follow-up study to be published in

Psychological Science in fall 2007 in which they found that the

change in emotional priorities gradually develops from age 18 to 80.

Since so much psychological research is conducted on college-aged

students, a somewhat captive audience that does often react to the

positive stimuli, examining the reactions of older adults brings new

focus to this area of research. As a result of their findings,

Kisley said they are collecting data for follow-up studies.

" We would like to know, for example, whether the observed change in

emotional priorities with aging is automatic, unconscious change or

whether it results from conscious effort on the part of the older

adult to switch their world view, " he said. " Determining the answer

to this question has implications for the well-being of seniors in

general, but especially for individuals who are dealing with

hardships including the loss of a spouse or major health conditions

including cancer or mental illness.

Article, " Looking at the Sunny Side of Life: Age-Related Change in

an Event-Related Potential Measure of the Negativity Bias " will be

published in Psychological Science.