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Individual differences in Pollyannaism.

M W Matlin1, V J Gawron

  • 1State University of New York, Geneseo, USA.

Journal of Personality Assessment
|August 1, 1979
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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People tend to process pleasant information better, a tendency known as the Pollyanna Principle. This study found that various measures of this optimistic bias are consistently related to each other in individuals.

Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology

Background:

  • The Pollyanna Principle suggests preferential processing of pleasant information.
  • Understanding the consistency of this principle across different measures is crucial for cognitive and personality research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the interrelationships between various measures of Pollyanna tendencies.
  • To determine if individuals exhibiting Pollyannaism on one metric also display it on others.

Main Methods:

  • Developed and administered fourteen distinct measures of Pollyannaism to 133 student participants.
  • Assessed self-ratings of optimism and happiness.
  • Evaluated memory recall for pleasant versus unpleasant words.
  • Analyzed free association responses to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • A significant positive correlation was observed across the fourteen measures of Pollyannaism.
  • Optimistic and happy individuals demonstrated Pollyanna tendencies in multiple assessed domains.
  • Participants recalled pleasant words more accurately and frequently than unpleasant ones.
  • Subjects rated life events and personality traits more positively.

Conclusions:

  • The Pollyanna Principle is a robust and consistent psychological tendency.
  • Multiple indicators reliably capture an individual's propensity towards positive information processing.
  • Findings support the validity of using diverse measures to assess Pollyannaism.