Affective Influences on Older Adults' Attention to Self-Relevant Negative Information.
OBJECTIVES
Some research suggests that older adults have a tendency to be biased toward positive information, but may be more willing to attend to potentially beneficial negative information in certain situations. Following the mood-as-resource framework, one possibility is that older adults may be more willing to consider negative information when in a positive mood, with positive affect serving as a buffer to the adverse emotional consequences that may follow.


METHOD
Young (n = 62) and older (n = 65) adults completed a difficult cognitive task before completing either a positive or negative experience recall task, depending upon assigned condition. Afterwards, they rated their interest in viewing their strengths and weaknesses on the previously completed task, and then selected and viewed different types of feedback (i.e., strengths or weaknesses).


RESULTS
Older adults in the positive condition selected more weaknesses to view and spent more time viewing weaknesses than older adults in the negative condition. There were no differences across conditions in behavioral results for young adults. Ratings of interest in viewing different types of feedback did not correspond with actual feedback viewing behavior.


DISCUSSION
Results highlight the importance of considering older adults' pre-existing mood before addressing self-relevant information that may be negative but important.
['Growney|Claire M|CM|', 'Hess|Thomas M|TM|']
D000328:Adult D000339:Affect D000367:Age Factors D000368:Aged D000375:Aging D003657:Decision Making D004644:Emotions D030141:Feedback, Psychological D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D011939:Mental Recall D000067656:Optimism D013647:Task Performance and Analysis
Positivity Mood-as-resource Emotion Decision making