Stereotype Threat Reduces the Positivity of Older Adults’ Recall

Barber, Sarah J.; Seliger, Jordan; Yeh, Nicholas; Tan, Shyuan Ching

doi:10.1093/geronb/gby026

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Perceived time left in life may also influence perceptions of subjective age, which can, in turn, affect motivation (Barber et al, 2018; Weiss & Freund, 2012). Age is unlike other demographic categories, such as race, gender, and political identities, in that relatively few older people identify with being “old.” In fact, most older people refer to “older people” in the third person (Jones, 2006).…”

Section: Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and The Positivity Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Stereotypes: Using Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Improve Messaging to Older Adults

Carstensen

Hershfield

2021

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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The tremendous heterogeneity in functional and demographic characteristics of the over-65 age group presents challenges to effective marketing and public-health communications. Messages grounded on tacit assumptions that older people are frail, incompetent, and needy risk being overlooked by most of the older population; on the other hand, ignoring age-associated vulnerabilities is problematic. We argue that although traditional approaches to market segmentation based on chronological age often fail, reliable age differences in motivation influence the types of information that older people typically prefer, attend to, and remember, and these differences can be used to inform communication efforts. Socioemotional selectivity theory maintains that as future time horizons grow limited—as they typically do with age—emotional goals are prioritized over goals that focus on exploration. As time left becomes more limited, positive messages are remembered better than negative ones, and products that help people savor the moment are preferred over those that benefit the long-term future. In addition, emphasizing individual strengths and personal resilience is likely to be especially appealing to older people.

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Section: Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and The Positivity Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Stereotypes: Using Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Improve Messaging to Older Adults

Carstensen

Hershfield

2021

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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“…TR Strategies. TR strategies (see Table 3) were examined in 38 conditions across the 36 included studies; two studies (Barber, Seliger, Yeh, & Tan, 2019; included separate subtle and blatant TR conditions within the same experiment. Eight conditions (21%) involved subtle TR strategies.…”

Section: Experimental Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eight conditions (21%) involved subtle TR strategies. Examples included providing pre-test information referring to positive qualities stereotypically associated with aging (e.g., wisdom; Barber et al, 2019), providing a vignette of a counter-stereotypical older adult (e.g., "His memory is as good as ever"; Aisenberg et al, 2015), or priming older adults to self-categorise A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t as younger relative to others in the study (e.g., Haslam et al, 2012). Twenty-two conditions (58%) comprised blatant TR strategies.…”

Section: Experimental Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A further seven studies (19%) included a control condition (Aisenberg et al, 2015;Alquist, Price, Hancock, Talley, & Cukrowicz, 2018;Andreoletti & Lachman, 2004;Fernández-Ballesteros et al, 2015;Hess et al, 2003;Swift, Abrams, & Marques, 2013). Four studies (11%) compared an ABST condition with a condition that included some type of TR strategy in addition to the ABST manipulation (i.e., an ABST+TR condition; Barber et al, 2019;Haslam et al, 2012;Liu, Zhao, Zhang, & Dang, 2017;. Finally, one study (3%) included both an ABST+TR condition and a control condition (Abrams et al, 2008).…”

Section: Experimental Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Four studies compared an ABST+TR condition with an ABST condition (Abrams et al, 2008;Barber et al, 2019;Haslam et al, 2012;. Three provided evidence of participants in ABST+TR conditions outperforming those in ABST conditions on a mathematics test (Abrams et al, 2008), word list recall , immediate and delayed verbal memory, and global cognitive status on the Addenbrooke"s Cognitive Examination-Revised (Haslam et al, 2012).…”

Section: Subtle Tr Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Overcoming Age-Based Stereotypes to Optimize Cognitive Performance in Older Adults: A Systematic Review of Methodology and Existing Evidence

et al. 2020

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Background and Objectives Age-based stereotype threat (ABST) poses serious risks for the cognitive screening of older adults. This review aimed to identify and critically appraise the methodology and existing evidence of studies investigating the use of threat-removal (TR) strategies to overcome the effects of ABST on the cognitive performance of older adults. The types of strategies, their effectiveness in optimising cognitive performance, and factors influencing their effectiveness were examined. Research Design and Methods A systematic review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. PsycINFO, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched from 1st January 1995 to 6th November 2019. Two authors independently assessed article eligibility and appraised methodological quality of eligible articles using an adaptation of the STROBE guidelines. Narrative synthesis was used to summarise results. Results Thirty articles, reporting on 36 studies, were eligible and included. Overall, evidence for the effectiveness of TR was mixed and varied according to the explicitness of strategies and comparison conditions used. Studies examining blatant TR strategies, and those using a combination of blatant and subtle TR strategies, provided limited support for their effectiveness in overcoming ABST. However, studies evaluating subtle TR strategies provided preliminary support for their effectiveness in overcoming ABST. Discussion and Implications Existing studies provide limited evidence regarding the effectiveness of TR strategies in overcoming ABST due to methodological limitations. Recommendations are made for the design of future studies to differentiate the benefits of TR strategies from the detrimental effects of ABST, thus potentially informing their use in clinical practice.

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The age-related positivity effect in cognition: A review of key findings across different cognitive domains

Kim

Barber

2022

Psychology of Learning and Motivation

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Stereotype Threat Reduces the Positivity of Older Adults’ Recall

Abstract: Our findings show that the positivity effect is more robust when testing situations minimize stereotype threat. They also suggest that health interventions designed to capitalize on the positivity effect should ensure that ageist stereotypes are mitigated in the environment.

Cited by 15 publications

References 57 publications

Beyond Stereotypes: Using Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Improve Messaging to Older Adults

Beyond Stereotypes: Using Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Improve Messaging to Older Adults

Overcoming Age-Based Stereotypes to Optimize Cognitive Performance in Older Adults: A Systematic Review of Methodology and Existing Evidence

The age-related positivity effect in cognition: A review of key findings across different cognitive domains

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