Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada.
Institute for Social Research, and Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, USA.
Adv Life Course Res. 2022 Mar;51. doi: 10.1016/j.alcr.2021.100452. Epub 2021 Nov 17.
Research suggests that the way individuals are oriented towards the future is deeply embedded in their psychology, shaping how they perceive and react to opportunities and threats, even at unconscious levels. We argue that exposures to opportunities and threats over the life course can shape future orientation at a deep level, and that word-valence effects to survey questions indicate optimistic and pessimistic "perceptual-response reflexes" that are manifestations of unconscious dispositions. Using data collected over 25 years in the Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) study we analyze variation in word-valence effects by age, birth cohort, gender, and race. The broad adult age-range of the sample and the length of follow-up permits the examination of birth cohorts ranging from the "First Children of the 20th Century" (born before 1917) to "Baby Boomers" (born 1947-1962). We find notable differences in age-graded trends across two overarching birth cohort groups: those who reached high school age before the Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs Board of Education decision in 1954 (i.e., born before 1932) and after (i.e., born in 1932 and later). Age-related trends in optimistic perceptual response diverge notably for women versus men, and for Black versus White Americans. Trends in pessimistic perceptual response differ from trends in optimistic response. For example, in early adulthood Black Americans score higher on both optimistic pessimistic response patterns than White Americans. Birth-cohort differences in both outcomes vary by gender and race. Those differences are interpreted in terms of changes in political, demographic, and sociocultural contexts.
研究表明，个体对未来的取向深深植根于他们的心理，影响他们对机会和威胁的感知和反应，甚至在无意识层面也是如此。我们认为，一生中接触到的机会和威胁可以从深层次上塑造未来取向，而调查问题中的词效反映出乐观和悲观的“感知反应反射”，这些都是无意识倾向的表现。利用“美国人生活变化研究”（ACL）在 25 年时间里收集的数据，我们分析了年龄、出生队列、性别和种族差异对词效的影响。样本的成年年龄范围广泛，随访时间长，允许我们考察从“20 世纪第一代孩子”（1917 年前出生）到“婴儿潮一代”（1947-1962 年出生）的不同出生队列。我们发现，在两个主要的出生队列群体中，年龄分级趋势存在显著差异：那些在 1954 年最高法院具有里程碑意义的“布朗诉教育委员会案”之前达到高中年龄的人（即 1932 年前出生）和之后的人（即 1932 年及以后出生）。女性和男性之间、黑人和美国白人之间，乐观感知反应的年龄相关趋势明显不同。悲观感知反应的趋势与乐观反应的趋势不同。例如，在成年早期，黑人和白人相比，黑人在乐观和悲观反应模式上的得分都更高。这两种结果的出生队列差异因性别和种族而异。这些差异可以从政治、人口和社会文化背景的变化方面来解释。
