POSITIVITY EFFECT IN AN ETHIOPIAN SAMPLE: INSIGHTS FROM THE DOT-PROBE TASK

Abstract

The positivity effect, or the tendency to attend more to positive than negative stimuli, has been widely reported in the literature among older adults, however, a few contradictory findings are also present.This concept is raising substantial interest from scholars as in this age group cognitive decline is evident, and surprisingly better emotional responses are present.Different theories try to explain this phenomenon without solid paradigms for investigation as it can be seen as a relatively new concept from the past 20 years.Furthermore, little is known about the positivity effect in non-Western populations.In this study, we aimed to explore the presence of the positivity effect in an Ethiopian population using the dot-probe task with facial emotional images as stimuli.This method is a pioneer in the positivity effect field consisting of a behavioral attentional task that relies on reaction time responses.A sample of 100 Ethiopian adults was divided into three age groups: young (18-30 years old), middle-aged (31-60 years old), and older (65+ years old) adults.All participants performed a dot-probe task on a computer where the stimuli were emotional images consisting of happy, angry, neutral, and sad faces.The results of the study did not show the presence of a positivity effect or a preference for any emotional image using this paradigm.These findings suggest that further research is needed to understand the factors that may influence the positivity effect in attention in different cultural contexts.

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