Positive emotions improve decision making, memory, and well-being of older adults.

For years, researchers have known that cognitive functions such as reasoning, memory, and problem solving decline with age. But a relatively new discovery is transforming conventional thinking about aging and cognition: as people age, their emotional wellbeing improves. 

“The processes that show decline are ones people need to navigate our everyday world— working memory, short-term memory, attention, the ability to represent visual images in our mind,” explained Joseph Mikels, assistant professor of human development. “All of the things we need to get around in life show significant decline starting in our 20s.” That is, except in one area: emotion. “Loss is ubiquitous across a number of cognitive domains, but older adults actually show an advantage over younger adults in the domain of emotion,” explained psychologist Anthony Ong, assistant professor of human development.  Read the full story