Evidence for Rose-Colored Glasses: An Examination of the Positivity Bias in Young Children's Personality Judgments

Young children exhibit a positivity bias in their judgment of personality traits, wherein they attend to or process information selectively to maintain optimistic views of the self and others. In addition to its theoretical relevance for developing a cohesive model of personality reasoning, the positivity bias has implications for several aspects of psychosocial well-being (e.g., peer relations, personal safety). Despite its importance and recurrence across many research studies, little attention has been devoted to studying the positivity bias systematically. This article describes 3 lines of research that demonstrate a positivity bias in early personality reasoning and presents arguments for the role of adaptive immaturity and socialization factors in setting the stage for, and perpetuating, the positivity bias. Suggestions for future research center on the need to consider the positivity bias as a profile of personality attribution, to identify the factors that contribute to the bias, and to understand the significance of the bias over the course of development.