Pollyanna principle Pollyanna principle The Pollyanna principle (also called Pollyannaism or positivity bias) is the tendency for people to remember pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones. Research indicates that at the subconscious level, the mind has a tendency to focus on the optimistic; while at the conscious level, it has a tendency to focus on the negative. This subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle and is similar to the Forer effect. The name derives from the 1913 novel "Pollyanna" by Eleanor H. Porter describing a girl who plays the "glad game"—trying to find something to
Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor famous folk hero." The "unborn" protagonists, who take turns recounting the anecdote pieces as first-person narratives, are original creations of Nicolăescu-Plopșor, their names being nonsensical counting rhymes for the word "loc" ("place", as in "stai pe loc", "stand your ground" or "you're it"). This replication of childlore, Popescu argues, "suggests a certain closeness to the [children's] mentality and ways of understanding". The narrative builds mainly on absurdist imagery and puns, resulting in what Popescu calls "dense humor". The two brothers mirror each other's physical attributes, and are unrealistically grotesque in appearance: they display heterochromia and hemihypertrophy, their faces and feet