Attentional Bias for Threat in Older Adults: Moderation of the Positivity Bias by Trait Anxiety and Stimulus Modality

摘要

Socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that emotion regulation goals motivate older adults topreferentially allocate attention to positive stimuli and away from negative stimuli. This study examinedwhether anxiety moderates the effect of the positivity bias on attention for threat. The authors employedthe dot probe task to compare subliminal and supraliminal attention for threat in 103 young and 44 olderadults. Regardless of anxiety, older but not young adults demonstrated a vigilant–avoidant response toangry faces. Anxiety influenced older adults' attention such that anxious individuals demonstrated avigilant–avoidant reaction to sad faces but an avoidant–vigilant reaction to negative words.