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VIRTUALISATION Do you believe memory worsens with age? You better not!
VIRTUALISATION Do you believe memory worsens with age? You better not! | Do you believe memory worsens with age? You better not! |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Friday, 24 April 2009 | |
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The abstract to the paper published by U.S. psychologists Thomas M. Hess, Joey T. Hinson, and Elizabeth A. Hodges, all from the Department of Psychology at North Carolina State University (Raleigh, North Carolina), stated, “Recent research has suggested that negative stereotypes about aging may have a detrimental influence on older adults' memory performance." "This study sought to determine whether stereotype-based influences were moderated by age, education, and concerns about being stigmatized. Possible mechanisms underlying these influences on memory performance were also explored.” The researchers tested memory performance in adults from the age group of 60 to 70 years (young-old group) and also from the age group of 71 to 82 years (old-old group). They sought to either induce stereotypical bias or eliminate such bias that might be present from stereotypes, specifically that older people have worse memories than younger people. Thus, they wanted to find out if such stereotypes did, indeed, have an impact on the memory performance of the elderly. The researchers either told the elderly subjects that older people do worse in memory tests just before they actually took such tests (a “threat”), or found out that the elderly subjects believed that younger people looked down on them because of a perceived belief that older peoples' memories were worse than theirs (a “stigma consciousness”). They found that older people do more poorly on memory tests when they are told beforehand that the elderly do poorly on such memory tests (the “threat”) and they believe the message. Specifically, the young-old group (60-70 years) performed worse than the old-old group (71-82 years) when this threat was believed. Page two continues. |
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