The effects of the Pollyanna Principle when remembering and recalling pleasant and unpleasant words.

The effects of the Pollyanna Principle when remembering and recalling pleasant and unpleasant words. The Pollyanna Principle is defined by Matlin (2006) with respect to memory and other cognitive processes as pleasant items are usually processed more efficiently and more accurately than less pleasant items. This was consequently named the Pollyanna Principle after the fictional character Pollyanna who was known to look on the bright side of life and to find goodness out of every environment and situation (Warr, 1971, as cited in Sargent, 2005). Numerous studies have also supported this fact by illustrating that people tend to display optimistic beliefs of themselves (Larwood Whittaker, 1977; Svenson, 1981, as cited in Silvera, Krull Sassler, 2002) and the external world around them (Klar Gilda, 1997, as cited in Silvera et al., 2002).One of the basis arising from the Pollyanna Principle contend that people are more accurate in learning and the subsequent recall of words that are found as pleasant in comparison to words that are found as less pleasant and neutral (Sargent, 2005).A graph demonstrating the serial position effect