A cross-cultural examination of the positivity effect in memory: United States vs. China.

Many studies conducted in the United States (U.S.) have documented a positivity effect in aging-a tendency for older adults to remember more positive than negative information in comparison to young adults. Despite this cognitive emotional benefit, U.S. adults still hold a more negative view of aging compared to adults in Asia. We hypothesized that these aging stereotypes may contribute to different patterns of age-related emotional memory processing in the two cultures. In the present study, we tested young and older adults in the U.S. and China on a View of Aging task and an emotional picture memory task. Chinese older adults hold a significantly more positive view of aging compared to all other groups of participants. Older adults in both countries demonstrated an age-related positivity effect, but Chinese older adults showed a trend in remembering fewer negative pictures than their American counterparts. These findings suggest that aging stereotypes might significantly influence older adults' cognitive abilities.