Alison L. Chasteen

Implementation Intentions and Facilitation of Prospective Memory

Forming detailed implementation intentions for a future behavior can increase the probability that the behavior is actually completed. We investigated whether this intention effect could be used to improve prospective memory in older adults. As expected, participants who formed an implementation intention were more than twice as likely to self-initiate the intended behavior (writing down the day of the week on every sheet of paper received during the experiment) compared with participants who either were merely instructed to do so or actively rehearsed the instruction. Forming an implementation intention, however, did not improve performance on a task that required a response to salient cues. We conclude that detailed implementation intentions facilitate prospective memory on tasks that lack salient cues and require self-initiation.

Rapid aimed limb movements: Age differences and practice effects in component submovements.

Two experiments are reported in which younger and older adults practiced rapid aimed limb movements toward a visible target region. Ss were instructed to make the movements as rapidly and as accurately as possible. Kinematic details of the movements were examined to assess the differences in component submovements between the 2 groups and to identify changes in the movements due to practice. The results revealed that older Ss produced initial ballistic submovements that had the same duration but traveled less far than those of younger Ss. Additionally, older Ss produced corrective secondary submovements that were longer in both duration and distance than those of the younger subjects. With practice, younger Ss modified their submovements, but older Ss did not modify theirs even after extensive practice on the task. The results show that the mechanisms underlying movements of older adults are qualitatively different from those in younger adults.

Stereotypes as dominant responses: on the "social facilitation" of prejudice in anticipated public contexts.

This article challenges the highly intuitive assumption that prejudice should be less likely in public compared with private settings. It proposes that stereotypes may be conceptualized as a type of dominant response (C. L. Hull, 1943; R. B. Zajonc, 1965) whose expression may be enhanced in public settings, especially among individuals high in social anxiety. Support was found for this framework in an impression formation paradigm (Experiment 1) and in a speeded task designed to measure stereotypic errors in perceptual identification (Experiment 2). Use of the process dissociation procedure (B. K. Payne, L. L. Jacoby, & A. J. Lambert, in press) demonstrated that these effects were due to decreases in cognitive control rather than increases in stereotype accessibility. The findings highlight a heretofore unknown and ironic consequence of anticipated public settings: Warning people that others may be privy to their responses may actually increase prejudice among the very people who are most worried about doing the wrong thing in public.

Loyal Deviance: Testing the Normative Conflict Model of Dissent in Social Groups:

The normative conflict model predicts that expressions of dissent within groups can be motivated by the collective interest and that strongly identified members may dissent from group norms if and when they are perceived to be harmful to the collective. We present convergent evidence from four studies in support of the model. Study 1 investigated retrospective reports of disagreements and found that strongly identified members reported collectively oriented motives for expressing disagreement within their groups. Studies 2a and 2b provided experimental tests of the prediction that strongly identified group members are willing to dissent when they reflect on how a norm could harm their group but not when they reflect on negative individualistic consequences of the same norm. Finally, Study 3 replicated these effects using a correlational design that measured actual opinion expression in an ostensible online chat room.

Age and regulatory focus determine preferences for health-related role models.

The authors hypothesized that the effectiveness of role models varies across the adult life span because of differences in health-related regulatory orientations. Because young adults have strong health-related promotion orientations, they should be motivated by positive models who illustrate the benefits of good health. Because older adults have more balanced health-related promotion and prevention orientations, they should be motivated not only by positive models but also by negative models who illustrate the costs of poor health. Results indicated that both young and older adults perceived positive models to be motivating, but older adults found negative models to be more motivating than did young adults. Age differences in responses to negative models were partially mediated by differences in health-related prevention orientation.

The Moderating Role of Age-Group Identification and Perceived Threat on Stereotype Threat among Older Adults

Although research has shown that older adults are negatively affected by aging stereotypes, relatively few studies have attempted to identify those older adults who may be especially susceptible to these effects. The current research takes steps toward identifying older adults most susceptible to the effects of stereotype threat and investigates the consequence of stereotype threat on the well-being of older adults. Older adults were tested on their recall of a prose passage under normal or stereotype threatening conditions. Memory decrements for those in the threat condition were moderated by perceived stereotype threat such that greater decrements were seen for those who reported greater perceived threat. A similar pattern was observed for negative emotion, such that those in the threat condition who reported higher perceptions of threat experienced a greater decrease in positive emotions. Age group identification also proved to be an important factor, with the strongly identified performing worse than the weakly identified. As well, high age-group identification buffered some of the negative affective consequences associated with stereotype threat, which is consistent with some models of coping with stigma.

Perceptions of Disadvantage Versus Conventionality: Political Values and Attitudes Toward the Elderly Versus Blacks

This article examines the role of political ideology in social prejudice. In contrast to a simple bipolar conceptualization of liberalism and conservatism, the authors present a framework stipulating that (a) liberalism is associated with the desire to assist disadvantaged groups but (b) conservatism is associated with respect for conventional, old-fashioned values. Unlike Blacks (who are potentially viewed by White Americans as both unconventional and disadvantaged), the elderly are highly disadvantaged but relatively conventional. On the basis of these differences, the authors predicted that liberalism would be positively correlated with attitudes toward both groups, whereas conservatism would be negatively correlated with attitudes toward Blacks but positively correlated with attitudes toward the elderly. This framework received strong support and, moreover, successfully predicted reactions to other types of groups that varied in terms of their conventionality/disadvantaged status. Implications for research on stereotypes and possible conceptualizations of political ideology are discussed.

Effects of hearing and vision impairments on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

Many standardized measures of cognition include items that must be seen or heard. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to overlook the possible effects of sensory impairment(s) on test scores. In the current study, we investigated whether sensory impairments could affect performance on a widely used screening tool, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Three hundred and one older adults (mean age = 71 years) completed the MoCA and also hearing and vision tests. Half of the participants had normal hearing and vision, 38% impaired hearing, 5% impaired vision, and 7% had dual-sensory impairment. More participants with normal sensory acuity passed the MoCA compared to those with sensory loss, even after modifying scores to adjust for sensory factors. The results suggest that cognitive abilities may be underestimated if sensory problems are not considered and that people with sensory loss are at greater risk of cognitive decline.

The cost and benefit of implicit spatial cues for visual attention.

Processing concepts with implicit spatial meaning or metaphorical spatial association has been shown to engage visuospatial mechanisms, causing either facilitation or interference with concurrent visual processing at locations compatible with the concepts. It is, however, unclear when interference or facilitation should be expected. It is possible that both effects result from the same processes that interact differently with different visual tasks (e.g., facilitating detection and interfering with discrimination). Alternatively, the 2 effects might represent different temporal stages of the same kind of processes, which can interfere with a congruent visual task at early stages but can cause facilitation at later stages. Finally, the 2 effects might be due to the differences in the underlying representations of concepts, particularly the differences between abstract and concrete concepts. Results of the present study are consistent with the view that interference and facilitation represent 2 temporal stages of the same kind of processes. In addition, the results reveal the unexpected importance of using multiple conceptual categories (as opposed to a single category) in observing the time course of the effects.

Aging and movement: variability of force pulses for saccadic eye movements.

Age-related differences in the trajectories of saccadic eye movements were examined. Younger and older adult subjects produced saccades to predictable target locations. Detailed features of the movements were examined such as the time of peak acceleration and the variability in the magnitude of the peak velocity. These and other measures reveal important details of the force pulses underlying the eye movements and the mental mechanisms that control them. Although minor differences were apparent between the eye movements of younger and older adults, the general patterns were the same across age groups. These results suggest that fundamental details of the brain mechanisms involved in the control of movement are the same for younger and older adults.