Taylor Adele M, Ritchie Stuart J, Deary Ian J
Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK.
Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK.
Intelligence. 2017 May;62:79-88. doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2017.03.002.
Maintaining good cognitive function is important for successful aging, and it has been suggested recently that having and optimistic outlook may also be valuable. However few have studied the relationship between cognitive ability and dispositional optimism and pessimism in older age. It is unclear whether associations found previously between cognitive ability and pessimism in older age, are evident across the life course, and are consistent at different points in older age. In the present study we examined associations between dispositional optimism and pessimism measured in the eighth and ninth decade of life and childhood and older age cognitive ability, and lifetime change in cognitive ability. Participants were two independent narrow-age samples of older individuals with mean ages about 73 ( = 847) and 87 ( = 220) years from the Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1936 (LBC1936) and 1921 (LBC1921), respectively. Higher cognitive ability in childhood and older-age, and healthier cognitive change across the lifetime were associated with lower pessimism in older age: age-11 IQ (LBC1936: β = - 0.17, < 0.001; LBC1921: β = - 0.29, = 0.001), older-age IQ (LBC1936: β = - 0.18, < 0.001; LBC1921: β = - 0.27, < 0.001), cognitive change (LBC1936: β = - 0.06, < 0.04; LBC1921: β = - 0.15, = 0.05). Cognitive ability was not significantly associated with optimism in bivariate analyses, and after adjustment for covariates had only small associations with optimism and only in the LBC1936. The results are consistent with differential associations between cognitive functions and optimism and pessimism, and indicate that their associations with cognitive ability are similar in the eighth and ninth decades of life.
保持良好的认知功能对成功老龄化很重要，最近有人提出拥有乐观的人生观也可能很有价值。然而，很少有人研究老年人认知能力与性格乐观和悲观之间的关系。目前尚不清楚先前发现的老年人认知能力与悲观之间的关联在整个生命过程中是否明显，以及在老年的不同阶段是否一致。在本研究中，我们考察了在生命的第八和第九个十年测量的性格乐观和悲观与童年及老年认知能力以及认知能力的终生变化之间的关联。参与者分别是来自1936年洛锡安出生队列（LBC1936）和1921年洛锡安出生队列（LBC1921）的两个独立的年龄范围较窄的老年人样本，平均年龄分别约为73岁（n = 847）和87岁（n = 220）。童年和老年时较高的认知能力，以及一生中更健康的认知变化与老年时较低的悲观情绪相关：11岁时的智商（LBC1936：β = -0.17，p < 0.001；LBC1921：β = -0.29，p = 0.001），老年时的智商（LBC1936：β = -0.18，p < 0.001；LBC1921：β = -0.27，p < 0.001），认知变化（LBC1936：β = -0.06，p < 0.04；LBC1921：β = -0.15，p = 0.05）。在双变量分析中，认知能力与乐观情绪没有显著关联，在调整协变量后，仅与乐观情绪有小的关联，且仅在LBC1936中如此。结果与认知功能和乐观与悲观之间的差异关联一致，并表明它们与认知能力的关联在生命的第八和第九个十年中相似。
