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Positivity Effect Papers


Carstensen Life-span Development Lab

Mikels, J.A., Larkin, G.L., Reuter-Lorenz, P.A., & Carstensen, L.L. (2005). Divergent trajectories in the aging mind: Changes in working memory for affective versus visual information with age. Psychology & Aging.

Carstensen, L.L. & Mikels, J.A. (2005). At the intersection of emotion and cognition: Aging and the positivity effect. Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Mather, M. & Carstensen, L.L. (2005). Aging and motivated cognition: The positivity effect in attention and memory. Trends in Cognitive Science.

Kennedy, Q., Mather, M., & Carstensen, L.L. (2004). The role of motivation in the age-related positive bias in autobiographical memory. Psychological Science, 15(3), 208-214.

Löckenhoff, C.E. & Carstensen, L.L. (2004). Socioemotional selectivity theory, aging, and health: The increasingly delicate balance between regulating emotions and making tough choices. Journal of Personality.72, 1395-1424.

Mather, M., Canli, T., English, T., Whitfield, S., Wais, P., Ochsner, K., Gabrieli, J. D. E., Carstensen, L. L. (2004). Amygdala responses to emotionally valenced stimuli in older and younger adults. Psychological Science, 15(4), 259-263.

Charles, S., Mather, M. & Carstensen, L.L. (2003). Aging and emotional memory: The forgettable nature of negative images for older adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132(2).

Fung, H.& Carstensen, L.L. (2003). Sending memorable messages to the old: Age differences in preferences and memory for advertisements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(1), 163-178.

Carstensen, L.L., Pasupathi, M., Mayr, U. & Nesselroade, J. (2000). Emotional experience in everyday life across the adult life span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 79, 644-655.

Related papers from other labs

Erskine, J.A.K., Kvavilashvili, L., Conway, M.A., Myers, L. (in press). The effects of age on psychopathology, well-being, and repressive coping. Aging and Mental Health. 11(4), 394-404.

Isaacowitz, D.M., Wadlinger, H.A., Goren, D., & Wilson, H.R. (in press). Is there an age-related positivity effect in visual attention? A comparison of two methodologies. Emotion.

Isaacowitz, D.M., Wadlinger, H.A., Goren, D., & Wilson, H.R. (in press). Selective preference in visual fixation away from negative images in old age? An eye tracking study. Psychology and Aging.

Lacey, H.P., Smith, D.M., & Ubel, P.A. (in press). Hope I die before I get old:  Mispredicting happiness across the adult lifespan. Journal of Happiness Studies.

Mather, M. (in press). Why memories may become more positive as people age. In B. Uttl, N. Ohta, & A. Siegenthaler (Eds), Memory and Emotion:Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Blackwell Publishing.

Schlagman, S., Schulz, J., & Kvavilashvili (in press). A content analysis of involuntary autobiographical memories: Examing the positivity effect in old age. Memory.

Xing, C. & Isaacowitz, D.M. (in press). Aiming at happiness: How motivation affects attention and memory for emotional images. Motivation and Emotion.

Comblain, C., D'Argembeau, A., & Van der Linden, M. (2005). Phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories for emotional and neutral events in older and younger adults. Experimental Aging Research, 31, 173-189.

Mather, M., Knight, M. & McCaffrey, M. (2005) The allure of the alignable: younger and older adults' false memories of choice features. Journal of Experimental Psycholgy: General,134, 38–51.

Brunot, S. and Sanitioso, R.B. (2004). Motivational influence on the quality of memories: recall of general autobiographical memories related to desired attributes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 627–635.

Comblain, C., D'Argembeau, A., Van der Linden, M., & Aldenhoff, L. (2004). Impact of ageing on the recollection of emotional and neutral pictures. Memory, 12, 673–684.

D'Argembeau, A. & Van der Linden, M. (2004). Identity but not expression memory for unfamiliar faces is affected by ageing. Memory, 12, 644–654.

Leigland, L.A., Schulz, L.E., & Janowsky, J.S. (2004). Age related changes in emotional memory. Neurobiology of Aging, 25, 1117–1124.

Denburg, N.L., Buchanan, T. W., Tranel, D., & Adolphs, R. (2003). Evidence for preserved emotional memory in normal elderly persons. Emotion, 3, 239–254.

Gunning-Dixon, F.M., Gur, R.C., Perkins, A.C., Schroeder, L., Turner, T., Turetsky, B.I., Chan, R.M., Loughead, J.W., Alsop, D.C., Maldjian, J., & Gur, R.E. (2003). Age-related differences in brain activation during emotional face processing. Neurobiology of Aging, 24, 285–295.

Iidaka, T., Okada, T., Murata, T., Omori, M., Kosaka, H., Sadato, N., & Yonekura, Y. (2002). Age-related differences in the medial temporal lobe responses to emotional faces as revealed by fMRI. Hippocampus, 12, 352–362.

Kensinger, E.A., Brierley, B., Medford, N., Growdon, J.H., & Corkin, S. (2002). Effects of normal aging and Alzheimer's disease on emotional memory. Emotion, 2, 118–134.

Mather, M. and Johnson, M.K. (2000) Choicesupportive source monitoring: do our decisions seem better to us as we age? Psychology and Aging, 15, 596–606.

Levine, L.J. and Bluck, S. (1997). Experienced and remembered emotional intensity in older adults. Psychology and Aging, 12, 514–523.

Sanitioso, R., Kunda, Z., & Fong, G.T. (1990). Motivated recruitment of autobiographical memories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(2), 229–241.

Ross, M., & Fletcher, G. (1981). The effect of attitude on the recall of personal histories. Journal of  Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 322–336.