Aschwanden Damaris, Sutin Angelina R, Luchetti Martina, Ó Súilleabháin Páraic S, Stephan Yannick, Sesker Amanda A, Lee Ji Hyun, Terracciano Antonio
Department of Geriatrics.
Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine.
Psychol Aging. 2022 Aug;37(5):575-590. doi: 10.1037/pag0000675. Epub 2022 Feb 3.
The discrepancy between subjective memory rating and objective memory performance is the tendency to misestimate one's memory. For example, better self-rated memory compared to performance on memory tasks reflects an overestimation of one's memory. This discrepancy may shape how individuals cognitively age: Overestimating one's memory could mask incident cognitive decline and underestimation could act as a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. This study sought to examine the association between personality traits and depressive symptoms and memory discrepancy in five large samples of middle-aged and older adults ( > 23,000). We preregistered three hypotheses: neuroticism would be related to underestimation, extraversion to overestimation, and conscientiousness to higher accuracy. Controlling for sociodemographic covariates (age, gender, race, ethnicity, and education), results from regression models were pooled using random-effect meta-analyses. Openness was associated with underestimation of memory performance. Contrary to our hypothesis, neuroticism was related to overestimation. Surprisingly, depressive symptoms were also associated with overestimation. Cognitive status (impaired vs. unimpaired) did not moderate the association between personality and memory discrepancy, but it did with depressive symptoms, with a null or opposite effect among individuals with impaired cognition. In conclusion, although previous studies demonstrate consistent associations between personality traits and subjective memory ratings and memory performance, the current findings suggest null or unexpected links between personality and memory discrepancy. The findings suggest that clinicians should not dismiss cognitive complaints in the presence of depressive symptoms or high neuroticism because objective memory performance could be even worse than self-rated memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
主观记忆评分与客观记忆表现之间的差异是对自身记忆的错误估计倾向。例如，与记忆任务表现相比，自我评定的记忆更好反映了对自身记忆的高估。这种差异可能会影响个体认知衰老的方式：高估自身记忆可能掩盖认知能力的下降，而低估则可能成为一种消极的自我实现预言。本研究旨在检验五个中老年成年人（超过23000人）大样本中人格特质、抑郁症状与记忆差异之间的关联。我们预先登记了三个假设：神经质与低估有关，外向性与高估有关，尽责性与更高的准确性有关。在控制社会人口统计学协变量（年龄、性别、种族、民族和教育程度）后，使用随机效应元分析汇总回归模型的结果。开放性与记忆表现的低估有关。与我们的假设相反，神经质与高估有关。令人惊讶的是，抑郁症状也与高估有关。认知状态（受损与未受损）并未调节人格与记忆差异之间的关联，但在认知受损个体中，它对抑郁症状有零效应或相反效应。总之，尽管先前的研究表明人格特质与主观记忆评分和记忆表现之间存在一致的关联，但目前的研究结果表明人格与记忆差异之间存在零关联或意外关联。研究结果表明，临床医生在存在抑郁症状或高神经质的情况下不应忽视认知方面的主诉，因为客观记忆表现可能比自我评定的记忆更差。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2022美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
