Wisdom of the Seniors

We have often heard adults make the statement “if I only knew then what I know now…” Perhaps it doesn’t have so much to do with our knowledge but with the way an older person’s brain processes the ups and downs of life. Researchers believe that older people respond differently to their negative feelings than persons of a younger generation. Researchers are discovering that an older person will not respond as strongly to life’s negative aspects.

An interesting study was carried out where older women and younger ones were shown a series of images. These images were a combination of photos to stimulate a positive, neutral or negative response. The younger women were around 25 years old while the older ladies averaged 70 years. At a later date the women were tested to see which photos they remembered. Both groups showed the tendency to remember the negative photos, but interestingly a significant amount of the older women recalled fewer of them than the younger subjects in the study. It was concluded that the older women have an ability to suppress the way they process the information. The possibility exists that they may prefer to center on more positive information and downplay the negatives. There are several theories as to why this happens.
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