Aging is associated with mental and physical losses, yet older adults seem to have a surprising advantage over young adults when it comes to positive mood and emotional well-being. This so-called "age-related positivity" also changes the way older adults approach emotional information: While young adults show a preference for negative information, older adults are more likely to attend to and remember the positives.
But this is not always the case. In fact, when older adults are engaged in multitasking while trying to memorize emotional material, this positivity bias disappears: Apparently, older adults' positivity is not a passive default state, but an active processing strategy, which can break down when processing demands become too high. Therefore, finding a way to boost older adults' ability to process information could potentially allow them to retain their positivity even in demanding multitask situations.
In a recent study published in Psychology and Aging, Mantantzis, Schlaghecken, and Maylor (2017) examined whether glucose can help older adults keep their positivity under high task demands.
Glucose is the main energy fuel supporting the brain's functions and the ingestion of even small doses can improve cognitive functioning. The authors predicted that glucose would particularly help older adults in supporting their preference for positive information when managing multiple tasks simultaneously.
Young and older adults consumed either a glucose or a placebo drink and memorized word lists consisting of positive and negative words. Half the lists were given alone (single task) while the remaining half were presented together with a demanding additional task (multitasking). After each list, participants were asked to recall as many words as possible from that list.
As expected, young adults had better memory than older adults and showed a preference for negative over positive words throughout the task. Also, all older adults showed the expected preference for positive words when the lists were presented alone. This positivity disappeared as expected during the multitasking condition for older adults who consumed the placebo. In striking contrast, older adults in the glucose group managed to retain their positivity preference in the multitasking condition.
It is interesting that in the multitasking condition, young and older adults used glucose resources differently. Whereas young adults used glucose to remember as much information as possible (both positive and negative), older adults used the glucose boost to selectively support their memory for positive material rather than improving their overall memory performance.
The authors conclude that older adults' preference for positive information is so potent that it can guide the way energy resources are used to support goals relating to positivity. The study is the first to demonstrate that a simple dietary intervention — providing a small dose of glucose — can help older adults retain their positivity even when faced with challenging task conditions.
Figure 1. Young and older adults' memory for negative and positive words during single task and multitasking conditions, after consumption of placebo or glucose.
Citation
- Mantantzis, K., Schlaghecken, F., & Maylor, E. A. (2017). Food for happy thought: Glucose protects age-related positivity effects under cognitive load. Psychology and Aging, 32(3), 203–209. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pag0000169
Note: This article is in the Health Psychology & Medicine topic area. View more articles in the Health Psychology & Medicine topic area.