About time? The role of time perspective in the priority for positive over negative emotion in attention

Compared to younger adults, older adults seem to prioritize processing positive information and deprioritize processing negative information. Known as the positivity effect, its mechanisms remain debated. One explanation of the positivity effect is that older adults are influenced by a sense of limited time left in life to focus more on emotional well-being compared with younger adults. Previous research shows that experimentally manipulating time perspective can mimic the positivity effect in younger adults, however such findings have relied on designs where participants can reflect on emotional images they are viewing. In the current study, we examined if time perspective manipulations would similarly elicit positivity effect patterns in younger adults using an emotion-attention task with rapid stimuli display. Across two experiments (N = 236 and N = 431), we found that time perspective had no influence on biases toward positive over negative emotional stimuli in younger adults. We instead found effects driven by time-related trait biases. We discuss these results as they relate to theories about mechanisms underlying the positivity effect and in the way that time-related biases may change the way individuals perceptually prioritize positive and negative information.