Hess Thomas M, Auman Corinne, Colcombe Stanley J, Rahhal Tamara A
Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh 27695, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2003 Jan;58(1):P3-11. doi: 10.1093/geronb/58.1.p3.
This study investigated the hypothesis that age differences in memory performance may be influenced by stereotype threat associated with negative cultural beliefs about the impact of aging on memory. Recall was examined in 48 young and 48 older adults under conditions varying in the degree of induced threat. Conditions that maximize threat resulted in lower performance in older adults relative to both younger adults and to older adults who did not experience threat. The degree to which threat affected older adults' performance increased along with the value that these individuals placed on their memory ability. Older adults' memory performance across experimental conditions was observed to covary with degree of activation of the negative aging stereotype, providing support for the hypothesized relationship between stereotype activation and performance. Finally, stereotype threat also influenced mnemonic strategy use, which in turn partially mediated the impact of threat on recall. These results emphasize the important role played by contextual factors in determining age differences in memory performance.
本研究探讨了一种假设，即记忆表现的年龄差异可能受到与衰老对记忆影响的负面文化信念相关的刻板印象威胁的影响。在48名年轻人和48名老年人中，在诱导威胁程度不同的条件下对回忆进行了检查。使威胁最大化的条件导致老年人的表现相对于年轻人和未经历威胁的老年人都更低。威胁对老年人表现的影响程度随着这些个体对其记忆能力的重视程度而增加。观察到老年人在不同实验条件下的记忆表现与负面衰老刻板印象的激活程度相关，这为刻板印象激活与表现之间的假设关系提供了支持。最后，刻板印象威胁也影响了记忆策略的使用，而记忆策略的使用又部分介导了威胁对回忆的影响。这些结果强调了情境因素在决定记忆表现的年龄差异中所起的重要作用。
