Age-related positivity enhancement is not universal: older Chinese look away from positive stimuli.
Socioemotional selectivity theory postulates that with age, people are motivated to derive emotional meaning from life, leading them to pay more attention to positive relative to negative/neutral stimuli. The authors argue that cultures that differ in what they consider to be emotionally meaningful may show this preference to different extents. Using eye-tracking techniques, the authors compared visual attention toward emotional (happy, fearful, sad, and angry) and neutral facial expressions among 46 younger and 57 older Hong Kong Chinese. In contrast to prior Western findings, older but not younger Chinese looked away from happy facial expressions, suggesting that they do not show attentional preferences toward positive stimuli.
Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong. hhlfung@psy.cuhk.edu.hk
Helene H
HH
Fung
Alice Y
AY
Lu
Deborah
D
Goren
Derek M
DM
Isaacowitz
Heather A
HA
Wadlinger
Hugh R
HR
Wilson
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual