The Psychology of Pollyannaism
This principle was first identified by researchers Matlin and Stang in the 1970s, who observed that humans tend to be noticeably upbeat and positive more often than downcast and surly. Their research found that people place greater importance on the positive, and often assume the best when it comes to making decisions without all the relevant information.
In their own words, Matlin and Stang explained, “cognitive processes selectively favor processing of pleasant over unpleasant information” (1978, p. 4). This tendency leads us to be more optimistic, positive, and forward-thinking, all traits that help us to function in our everyday lives and smooths our interactions with other people (more on that later).
In addition to focusing on the positive overall, the Pollyanna Principle explains that we are much more likely to remember pleasant and positive memories. We even tend to recall neutral events as more positive than they really were, which often gives us “rose-colored glasses” about our past and feeds our sense of nostalgia for days gone by.
Although the tendency to be optimistic and find the silver lining is no doubt a desirable trait—and one that imparts benefits to our health and well-being to boot—to be a “Pollyanna” is generally not considered to be a good thing. In fact, if you type “Pollyanna” into Google, you get this definition:
“An excessively cheerful or optimistic person” (emphasis added).
That word—excessive—explains the general resistance to adopting Pollyanna’s cheerful attitude; there is such a thing as being too cheerful and optimistic. Consider an example from your own life—there is likely at least one or two occasions in which you needed to vent or complain a bit, and an irritatingly optimistic person either prevented you from doing so or made you feel bad for thinking negatively.
We all have our down days and difficult moments, and none of us can be Pollyanna all the time. As with most things in life, the sweet spot is in a healthy balance of positivity and optimism along with realism, a sense of context, and a working understanding of what is appropriate and when.
As it turns out, even those of us who suffer from depression or other mood disorders have an inherent ability to focus on the positive. Psychologists William Dember and Larry Penwell conducted an experiment in which they compared scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (a widely-used scale for depressive symptoms) with scores on a happiness measure and two “Pollyanna” measures.
Dember and Penwell found that, as expected, scores on the depression measure were significantly negatively correlated to scores on the happiness measure, but depression scores were not significantly correlated with the scores on either Pollyanna measure (1980).
This indicates that our inherent positivity bias is something separate from the mood disorders that afflict so many of us, and suggests that we are still capable of focusing on the positive even in the most trying and depressing times.
Perhaps this innate tendency towards the positive is what the many treatments for depression are able to harness and reinforce, guiding us to use our own inner strength to restore a healthy balance of positivity and realism instead of falling on the negative side of the spectrum.
What is the Person-Positivity Bias?

The need for a balance of optimism and realism is highlighted when we consider how our feelings about people influence our behavior.
If we always assumed the best of people and focused only on the positive, we would find ourselves being taken advantage of and may end up penniless and downtrodden!
Although we do have our likes and dislikes when it comes to people we know, the positivity bias extends to this domain as well—we tend to think positively about individual people unless given reason to think otherwise.
Although related to the Pollyanna Principle, this phenomenon has its own term: person-positivity bias. It is based on the observation that people tend to like individuals more than the groups that the very same individuals compose (Sears, 1983).
You might recognize this in some of your daily conversations—have you ever heard someone say something like, “I generally don’t like Red Sox fans, but you’re alright!” or “I hate lawyers, but this one’s not so bad.”
This tendency to see the positive in individual people causes us to make “exceptions” and—generally—to continue with our established view of the group or groups to which they belong. For example, this phenomenon helps explain why racist people can have a friend who is a member of a racial minority but still see that race as inferior or undesirable overall.
One interesting bit of evidence that points to the existence of a person-positivity bias is the phenomenon of student evaluations: students generally rate their professors significantly more highly than the very classes they teach!
Further, the president of the United States is usually more well-liked than the Congress as a whole, but individual members of Congress are usually more well-liked than Congress as a group (“Person-positivity heuristic”, n.d.).
The person-positivity bias is a strong one, and succinctly explains how Congress can have such low approval ratings (around 10% in recent times) but individual members of Congress can have such high ratings, although it’s important to note that these ratings will largely vary by party affiliation.
On the subject of party affiliation, that brings us to another great example of the person-positivity bias; politics have become more polarizing than ever, with extreme groups on every edge and around all the fringes of any spectrum of political opinions. However, although there are many people with extremely strong, negative opinions about all members of the opposing party, we all still tend to get along pretty well on a daily basis.
This is because, while people may have very rigid views on the other party (e.g., “All conservatives are selfish” or “All liberals are overly sensitive”), they tend to make exceptions for the people in their life who belong to that party.
Very few families are composed entirely of people who have the exact same views on politics, so it’s often necessary to interact with at least a few people of the “undesirable” group in a polite manner. When these interactions remain civil and family ties bind people together, it’s easy to start making exceptions for those with differing views and seeing them as “one of the (few) good ones.”
Our positive perceptions of individual people have been an evolutionary advantage for millennia, helping us to get along and work together to survive. Although it is arguably less important to band together for survival in modern times, the positive bias humans have for other people is still the glue that holds society together and helps bond us to one another.
What our readers think
Hello I am a bit dumbfounded. Towards the end u list a couple of things and for example u said u remember how it’s bad to think of the good. That when remembering ur first date u only remember the good and not the bad. I don’t see how remembering the good only is a bad thing. Actually I guess I answered my own question you were just saying it’s just overall pretty bad to JUST remember the good. I think it’s good actually I know it’s good to remember the good and bad. I think one thing you could have emphasized it to think of the bad sometimes. But this is positive psychology so I can see why u didn’t!