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

Compared to younger adults, older adults often prioritise 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 a rapid stimuli display. Across three experiments (N = 236, N = 431, and N = 259), we found that time perspective had little influence on attentional biases toward positive over negative emotional stimuli in younger adults. Additionally, when we incorporated a memory task into the design, effects of time perspective were not consistent with previous findings - in fact, patterns were in the opposite direction. We discuss these results as they relate to theories and the advantages and disadvantages of tasks used to examine the positivity effect.