The effects of a defendant's childhood physical abuse on lay support for sentencing: The moderating role of essentialism

Research suggests that a defendant's history of experiencing childhood abuse, and its effects on their life and later decision-making, may impact public support for a defendant's sentencing, particularly mitigation. However, no existing research has examined how and why sentencing support may vary based on the time period when the abuse occurs during a defendant's childhood. This experiment, using a sample of the U.S. public (N = 400), examines how the age at which a defendant's childhood physical abuse occurs affects lay support for the goals of their sentencing. We hypothesized that participants with higher levels of social and biological trait essentialism would moderate their increased support for more punitive sentencing goals-particularly when a defendant was abused earlier, rather than later, in childhood. Results suggest that social essentialism is associated with increased support for restoration and rehabilitation toward defendants with histories of childhood physical abuse, potentially indicating that the public views the effects of child abuse as more of a social, versus biological, process which may affect support for utilitarian punishment goals.

Internalized stigma: Social support, coping, psychological distress, and mental well-being among older adults in Ghana

BACKGROUND

Older adults have been found to internalize stigma from society and this has been linked to several variables including social support, coping, psychological distress, and mental well-being. However, there is a dearth of research on how these variables interact with each other to impact the life of older adults.

AIMS

This study employed path analysis to explore social support and coping as boundary conditions and underlying mechanisms in the link between internalized stigma, psychological distress, and mental well-being, among older adults in Ghana.

METHOD

Using a cross-sectional design, the study recruited 167 older adults who responded to standardized questionnaires including The Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness scale, Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale, The Brief Coping Inventory, Kessler Distress Scale, and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, to determine levels of internalized stigma, social support, coping strategies, psychological distress, and mental well-being, respectively.

RESULTS

The findings revealed that at low levels of social support, there is a significant and positive correlation between internalized stigma and mental well-being (β = -.36, SE = 0.17, p < .001). Path analysis showed that the relationship between internalized stigma and mental well-being was fully mediated by problem-focused coping (β = .11, p = . 001, 95% CI [0.04, 0.21]), but not psychological distress. Problem-focused coping was also found to have a significant positive correlation with mental well-being but no significant correlation with psychological distress. Conversely, avoidant-focused coping was found to have a significant positive correlation with psychological distress and a significant negative correlation with mental well-being.

CONCLUSIONS

This study revealed the importance of social support and coping to attaining mental well-being among older adults. This study provides insights into the development of tailored interventions aimed at improving social support and problem-focused coping among older Ghanaian adults facing internalized stigma, and it also establishes a base for future research.

What do we really know about age-related stereotypes and well-being of older adults? A commentary on the state of the art

There is a considerable body of literature on harmful consequences of age-related stereotypes-including consequences on physical and mental health. However, this commentary critically argues that the current state of the art disregards consequences of these stereotypes specifically for the well-being of older adults (i.e., outcome that is not to be confounded with mental health). To this end, the content of age-related stereotypes and the mechanisms through which they operate on physical and mental health are first outlined. The commentary then focuses on the very scarce evidence documenting how and when the well-being of older adults (as assessed directly and not as inferred from other indicators) is influenced by self-directed stereotypes. After setting out possible ways well-being may be involved in the relationship between self-directed stereotypes and physical and mental health of older adults, the present commentary argues that a better understanding of well-being would benefit strategies targeting the reduction of age-related stereotypes. Overall, this commentary on the state of the art highlights that future research is still needed to better understand both the direct and indirect relationships between age-related stereotypes and well-being that is not reducible to positive experiences of life (or hedonic well-being) but also comprises an eudaimonic component.

Effects of age-based stereotype threat on time-based prospective memory

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of a blatant activation of age-based stereotype threats (ABST) on time-based prospective memory (TBPM) in older adults. A sample of 74 adults from Hong Kong was randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions: the stereotyped condition (n = 36) or the neutral condition (n = 38). Participants were asked to read fictitious news reports related to dementia (stereotyped condition) or the importance of English oral skills (neutral condition). After, all participants performed a TBPM task using the Chinese lexical decision task as an ongoing task block. The results indicate a main effect of ABST on TBPM accuracy. Specifically, older adults under a blatant activation of ABST demonstrated lower TBPM accuracy (p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.08). Further analyses based on age groups demonstrated that TBPM accuracy was only impaired in older participants (aged 70-80 years) (p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.19). The study, for the first time, provides evidence that ABST can disrupt TBPM performance in older adults, especially when cues are blatantly activated.

A brief version of the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire for older Chinese adults: development and psychometric evaluation

BACKGROUND

Positive attitudes toward aging are considered essential for achieving psychological well-being in later life. However, there is currently a lack of a concise and comprehensive measurement tool specifically designed to assess attitudes toward aging among the elderly population in China. To address this gap, the present study aimed to develop a brief version of the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire tailored to older Chinese individuals and evaluate its psychometric properties.

METHODS

Initially, a sample of community-dwelling older adults (Sample 1: n = 442, aged 60-88) was utilized to establish a new scale format. Subsequently, two convenience samples (Sample 2: n = 311, aged 60-90; Sample 3: n = 164, aged 60-89) were employed to evaluate the psychometric properties of this scale, including factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.

RESULTS

We selected 12 items from the original questionnaire to create the brief scale. The brief scale maintained the three-factor structure of the full-format version, encompassing psychosocial loss, physical change, and psychological growth, and demonstrated adequate psychometric properties.

CONCLUSIONS

This development process shortens the administration time of the questionnaire while avoiding excessive loss of information. The newly developed scale serves as a reliable and valid assessment tool for measuring attitudes toward aging among older Chinese individuals and is well-suited for implementation in large-scale surveys that utilize an extensive array of questionnaires. This tool can be applied to assessing the effectiveness of interventions aimed at eliminating ageism.

Age-based stereotype threat: a scoping review of stereotype priming techniques and their effects on the aging process

Objectives: In the current study, we reviewed and classified the different experimental methods reported in the literature to induce age-base stereotype threat in older adults, providing a comprehensive view of the methodologies present in the literature to date.Method: The current study has been developed as a literature scoping review. The PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and CINAHL database were searched. With this approach, we assessed developments in experimental age-based stereotype manipulations in the last decades.Results: 26 articles were considered for this scoping review. Through a thematic analysis, we classified the papers into three broad categories based on the priming technique addressed: manipulation by instructions, manipulation by tests and, manipulation by mental imagery.Conclusion: Our results seem to suggest how manipulations by instructions appeared to be more largely used and capable of producing more clear performance variations on cognitive, memory, and physical tasks. Age-related stereotypes showed potentially stronger effects when they are negative, implicit, and temporally closer to the test of performance.

The Challenge of Subjective Cognitive Complaints and Executive Functions in Middle-Aged Adults as a Preclinical Stage of Dementia: A Systematic Review

Subjective cognitive complaints correspond to a heterogeneous construct that frequently occurs in the early stages of older adult life. Despite being a common source of worry for middle-aged people, it can be underestimated when clinical and neuropsychological assessments discard any underlying pathological processes. Negative age stereotyping but also self-stereotyping can contribute to doing so. Although its diagnosis is a challenge, its implication as a possible predictor of mild cognitive impairment or dementia increases the interest in its early diagnosis and intervention. The present systematic review analyzes the empirical data on the relationship between these complaints and early executive dysfunction with possible predictive value for preclinical stages of dementia. The sixteen papers obtained from the PubMed and Embase databases were exploratory, cross-sectional and prospective in scope. The studies corroborated the relationship between subjective cognitive complaints and some executive processes, which is noteworthy since many people with subjective executive complaints progress to dementia. The relational studies confirmed that impaired executive performance is associated with CSF biomarkers and reduced cortical volume in specific brain regions. However, the heterogeneity of reports in these studies demands stronger efforts in future research with specific tools applied in clinical and neuropsychological assessments and analyzed under a gender perspective.

Genes Versus Lifestyles: Exploring Beliefs About the Determinants of Cognitive Ageing

Genetic and lifestyle factors contribute to cognitive ageing. However, the extent to which the public attribute changes in thinking skills to either genetic or lifestyle factors is largely unknown. This may be important if it impacts engagement in activities deemed beneficial to thinking skills. This study, therefore, explored people's beliefs about determinants of cognitive ageing and whether those beliefs were associated with engagement in potentially beneficial behaviours. Data were collected through a United Kingdom-wide survey of people aged 40 and over. Participants completed questions about their beliefs regarding cognitive ageing, and specifically the extent to which they believed lifestyle or genetic factors influence those changes, and their engagement in specific behaviours that may be cognitively beneficial. Responses from 3,130 individuals (94.0% of the survey sample) were analysed using chi-square tests of independence, principal component analysis and ANCOVAs to investigate whether their attribution of genetic or lifestyle determinants were associated with their beliefs about cognitive ageing and their participation in brain health-related behaviours. Most respondents (62.2%) believed genes and lifestyle contribute equally to age-related changes in cognitive skills. Respondents who believed genetic factors were more influential were less likely to expect cognitive skills might be improved or maintained with age, less sure what behaviours might be associated with brain health, and less likely to engage in behaviours comprising mental challenge/novelty supported as beneficial for brain health. From this United Kingdom-wide survey about beliefs regarding potential determinants of cognitive ageing, some of our respondents' views were not aligned with the findings from ageing research. It is important for the public to know how to keep their brains healthy. Our results indicate a need for clearer messaging highlighting the role of lifestyle factors for brain health.

Predicting others' knowledge in younger and older adulthood

Our beliefs about aging affect how we interact with others. For example, people know that episodic memory declines with age, and as a result, older adults' memories are less likely to be trusted. However, not all aspects of remembering decline with age; semantic memory (knowledge) increases across adulthood and is relatively unaffected in healthy aging. In the current work, we examined people's awareness of this pattern. Participants estimated the knowledge of hypothetical younger and older adults; in some studies, they also predicted and demonstrated their own knowledge on the same measures. Across studies, both younger and older adults estimated that older adults would perform better on a knowledge test, demonstrating awareness that knowledge is not impaired with aging. Furthermore, people's beliefs about their own knowledge influenced the predictions they made about others' knowledge. We discuss how this work informs theories of metacognition and contributes to positive self-perceptions in older adulthood.

Cognitive Interference in the Context of Daily Stressors, Daily Awareness of Age-Related Change, and General Aging Attitudes

OBJECTIVES

Previous diary work indicates that older people experience more intrusive and unwanted thoughts (i.e., cognitive interference) on days with stressors. We examined additional predictors of daily cognitive interference to enhance understanding of the psychological context surrounding this link. We specifically focused on factors related to subjective experiences of aging based on studies that have related higher stress and impairments in cognition such as executive control processes (working memory) to negative age stereotypes. Consistent with these findings, we generally expected stronger stress effects on cognitive interference when daily self-perceptions of aging (i.e., within-person fluctuations in awareness of age-related losses [AARC losses]) and general aging attitudes (i.e., individual differences in attitudes toward own aging [ATOA]) were more negative.

METHODS

Participants (n = 91; aged 60-80) on Amazon's Mechanical Turk completed surveys on 9 consecutive days, reporting on their ATOA (Day 1) as well as their stressors, AARC losses, and cognitive interference (Days 2-9).

RESULTS

Multilevel models showed that people reported more cognitive interference on days with more AARC losses. Individuals with positive ATOA also experienced less cognitive interference on days with more stressors, whereas those with negative ATOA experienced more.

DISCUSSION

Both individual differences and fluctuating daily perceptions of aging appear to be important for older adults' cognitive interference. Consistent with other work, positive ATOA protected against daily stressor effects. Further elucidating these relationships can increase understanding of and facilitate efforts to improve (daily) cognitive experiences in older adults.

Measuring (Non)Essentialist Beliefs About the Process of Aging

OBJECTIVES

We validated an aging mindset measure that captures beliefs about the process of aging. Specifically, we introduce a brief 4-item and an extended 10-item measure assessing (non)essentialist beliefs about aging.

METHODS

We report findings from one longitudinal and one cross-cultural study, including young, middle-aged, and older adults between 18 and 88 years. The studies established (retest) reliability and measurement invariance as well as convergent and discriminant validity of the measures.

RESULTS

First, in a longitudinal study (N = 124, 50-84 years) including 4 measurement occasions, we showed that the 4-item scale assessing (non)essentialist beliefs about aging has good retest reliability and convergent as well as discriminant validity (e.g., awareness of age-related change). Second, in a large cross-cultural sample (N = 1,080, 18-82 years) of participants in the United States and Germany, we established an extended 10-item measure of (non)essentialist beliefs about aging, providing support for a 2-factor structure as well as measurement invariance across samples within and across countries (the United States and Germany), age groups (young, middle-aged, and older adults), as well as across men and women.

DISCUSSION

Our results highlight the importance of distinguishing between fixed versus malleable aging beliefs in research on aging and life-span development.

The Impact of Naturalistic Age Stereotype Activation

Almost self-fulfilling, commonly held negative stereotypes about old age and memory can impair older adults' episodic memory performance, due to age-based stereotype threat or self-stereotyping effects. Research studies demonstrating detrimental impacts of age stereotypes on memory performance are generally conducted in research laboratories or medical settings, which often underestimate memory abilities of older adults. To better understand the "real world" impact of negative age and memory stereotypes on episodic memory, the present research tested story recall performance of late middle-aged and older adults (N = 51) following a naturalistic age stereotype manipulation, wherein every day, newspaper-style materials (comics and puzzles) were either embedded with negative age and memory stereotype stimuli (stereotype group) or neutral stimuli (control group). Furthermore, all participants were tested in favorable, familiar environments. Potential moderators of the stereotype effects, e.g., metamemory beliefs, were assessed at baseline. Current memory evaluation and subjective age, as well as perceived stereotype threat and task-related anxiety, were assessed following the stereotype manipulation as potential mechanisms of the expected stereotype effects. Results suggested a contrast effect, as the stereotype group demonstrated superior story recall performance compared to the control group. Marginally significant moderation effects by age and perceived stereotype threat indicated that stereotype rejection was present for late middle-aged adults but not older adults, indicative of stereotype lift, and for individuals who reported low and average, but not high, levels of perceived stereotype threat. Additionally, a trend suggested more positive memory evaluation for those in the stereotype group who reported awareness of the stereotype stimuli than those who did not notice the stimuli. These results are consistent with other research demonstrating benefits to memory performance in adulthood based on motivational and contextual factors, such as using relevant memory materials and testing in favorable conditions. Moreover, the results of this study contribute to our understanding of individuals' responses to different types of stereotype stimuli, and the differential impact of stereotype manipulations that are subtle versus blatant. Individuals were motivated to counteract negative stereotype effects when conditions were supportive, stereotype presentations were naturalistic, and personal beliefs were positive.

The assessment of views on ageing: a review of self-report measures and innovative extensions

This is a review of existing self-report measures for assessing views on ageing. It provides an overview of instruments, for which basic psychometric properties are available and describes them according to the purposes for which they are suitable. Literature search resulted in the inclusion of 89 instruments which were categorised along eight dimensions. The majority of measures focus on explicit cognitions about people's own age and ageing or other (older) people. A substantial amount of tools account for the multidimensionality and multidirectionality of views on ageing, i.e. the idea that ageing is accompanied by both gains and losses in several different domains. To some extent, measures reflect that ageing is a long-term process and that views on ageing are malleable, rather than just stable traits. Cluster analysis revealed heterogeneity in instruments regarding the dimensions of Ecosystem, Balance, Stability, Dynamics, and Complexity. It becomes apparent, however, that approaches to measure views on ageing should be extended to more specifically target the implicit level as well as affective, physiological, and behavioural manifestations. Additionally, means for capturing views on ageing on the societal level and tools with a distinct time reference are needed. This is particularly important when one wants to account for the lifelong dynamics of views on ageing.

Implicit and Explicit Measurement of Work-Related Age Attitudes and Age Stereotypes

Age attitudes and age stereotypes in the workplace can lead to discrimination and impaired productivity. Previous studies have predominantly assessed age stereotypes with explicit measures. However, sole explicit measurement is insufficient because of social desirability and potential inaccessibility of stereotypical age evaluations to introspection. We aimed to advance the implicit and explicit assessment of work-related evaluations of age groups and age stereotypes and report data collected in three samples: students (n = 50), older adults (n = 53), and workers (n = 93). Evaluative age attitudes were measured implicitly with an Implicit Association Test. Regardless of group, age, and condition (neutral or semantically biased stimuli), the results confirm a stable, moderate implicitly measurable preference for younger over older workers. Whereas explicit measures of general age preferences showed no clear age preference, differentiated explicit measures of work-related age stereotypes also revealed stable preferences in all three samples: Younger workers were rated higher on performance and adaptability and older workers were rated higher on competence, reliability, and warmth. The explicit-implicit correlations were relatively low. Although explicit work-related age stereotypes are differentiated, the stable implicitly measured age bias raises concern. We suggest to apply implicit and explicit measures in the field of ageism in the workplace.

Multiple Sources of Aging Attitudes: Perceptions of Age Groups and Generations From Adolescence to Old Age Across China, Germany, and the United States

Emerging evidence suggests that people not only categorize themselves and others based on age but also in terms of their generational membership. This cross-cultural study compared attitudes and stereotypes toward age and generational groups across the life span in China, Germany, and the United States including 1,112 participants between 18 and 86 years of age. We asked younger, middle-aged, and older respondents to rate either six age groups (e.g., adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, young-old, older, and old-old adults) or six matching generational groups (e.g., Generation Z, Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomer, Silent Generation, and Greatest Generation) on various characteristics (e.g., happy, competent, selfish). Consistent with our hypotheses, the results demonstrate that across all three countries older generations were perceived consistently more positive, whereas older age groups were perceived as less positive. These findings suggest that generations represent a source of positive regard and high social status in later life across different countries with different historical backgrounds and cultures.

The effects of stereotype threat on older adults' walking performance as a function of task difficulty and resource evaluations

Stereotype threat occurs when people are concerned about confirming a negative stereotype about their social group, and this often leads people to underperform within the threatened domain. Although this is well-documented, the majority of prior studies examining stereotype threat in older adults have focused on cognitive outcomes and comparatively less research has focused on how stereotype threat affects physical outcomes. In this study, we examined whether negative age-based evaluations invoke stereotype threat and adversely affect older adults' gait, and whether this depends upon the difficulty of the gait task and upon participants' evaluations of their own resources to cope with the demands of the gait task. To test this, we recruited 163 healthy, community-dwelling older adults and asked them to complete either an "easy" gait task (i.e., walking at their own comfortable pace) or a "difficult" gait task (i.e., walking within a 15 cm narrow base of support) along a 24' temporospatial-measuring walkway. This was done in either the presence or absence of a negative age-based evaluation. Results showed that the adverse effects of stereotype threat (i.e., walking slower, with relatively more variability in speed, and with more step errors) were generally limited to participants completing the difficult gait task who were not confident that they had sufficient resources to cope with the demands of the task. Thus, stereotype threat can impair older adults' physical performance, but the magnitude of this effect depends upon the task's objective difficulty and on participants' subjective evaluations of their own resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Attitudes to ageing, biomarkers of ageing and mortality: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936

Objective

To investigate whether people with more positive attitudes to ageing are biologically younger as defined by leucocyte telomere length, accelerated DNA methylation GrimAge (AgeAccelGrim) and brain-predicted age difference, and whether these biomarkers explain relationships between attitudes to ageing and mortality.

Methods

We used linear regression to examine cross-sectionally attitudes to ageing (measured using the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire) and the three biomarkers in 758 adults, mean age 72.5 years, from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. We used Cox proportional hazards models to examine longitudinally attitudes to ageing and mortality and the role of the biomarkers.

Results

More positive attitude to physical change was associated with younger biological age, as measured by AgeAccelGrim and brain-predicted age difference in age-adjusted and sex-adjusted models: for an SD higher score, AgeAccelGrim was lower by -0.73 (95% CI -1.03 to -0.42) of a year, and brain-predicted age difference was lower by -0.87 (1.51 to 0.23) of a year. Both associations were attenuated by adjustment for covariates and not significant after simultaneous adjustment for all covariates and correction for multiple testing. More positive attitudes to physical change were associated with lower mortality: for an SD higher score the age-adjusted and sex-adjusted HR (95% CI) was 0.66 (0.56 to 0.78). Adjustment for AgeAccelGrim or brain-predicted age difference attenuated this association slightly. It remained significant after adjustment for all covariates.

Conclusion

We found partial evidence that attitudes to ageing are linked with ageing biomarkers but they accounted for only a little of the association between attitudes and mortality.

Are We Ill Because We Age?

Growing elderly populations, sometimes referred to as gray (or silver) tsunami, are an increasingly serious health and socioeconomic concern for modern societies. Science has made tremendous progress in the understanding of aging itself, which has helped medicine to extend life expectancies. With the increase of the life expectancy, the incidence of chronic age-related diseases (ARDs) has also increased. A new approach trying to solve this problem is the concept of geroscience. This concept implies that the aging process itself is the common cause of all ARDs. The corollary and consequence of such thinking is that we can and should treat aging itself as a disease. How to translate this into the medical practice is a big challenge, but if we consider aging as a disease the problem is solved. However, as there is no common definition of what aging is, what its causes are, why it occurs, and what should be the target(s) for interventions, it is impossible to conclude that aging is a disease. On the contrary, aging should be strongly considered not to be a disease and as such should not be treated; nonetheless, aging is likely amenable to optimization of changes/adaptations at an individual level to achieve a better functional healthspan.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying the effects of negative age stereotypes and perceived age discrimination on older adults' well-being

Objectives: Although numerous studies have documented that negative age stereotypes and perceived age discrimination are related to older adults' lower well-being, few studies have investigated the mechanisms underlying these relationships. In this study, we tested whether self-perceptions of aging and subjective age would help to account for the relation between stereotypes and discrimination and self-esteem. According to the internalization hypothesis, we expected that the effects of negative age stereotypes and greater perceived age discrimination would be driven by more negative self-perceptions of aging and older subjective age. Method: A total of 151 older adults completed questions assessing their endorsement of negative age stereotypes, perceived age discrimination, self-perceptions of aging, subjective age, and self-esteem. Relationships among these variables were assessed using serial mediation analyses. Results: Consistent with the internalization hypothesis, negative age stereotypes and perceived age discrimination indirectly predicted older subjective age and lower self-esteem through worsening self-perceptions of aging. However, we did not find a direct effect of negative age stereotypes or perceived discrimination on subjective age, nor an indirect effect of negative age stereotypes and perceived age discrimination on self-esteem through subjective age. Conclusion: These results support the internalization hypothesis: among older adults, holding more negative age stereotypes and perceiving more age discrimination is associated with feeling older and with lower self-esteem through worsened perceptions of one's own aging. Given the central role of self-perceptions of aging, these findings highlight the importance of promoting more positive self-perceptions in order to maintain or increase older adults' well-being.

Motivation for Longevity Across the Life Span: An Emerging Issue

Over the past decades, increases in life expectancy in most modern societies have raised questions about whether and to what extent individuals value possible extensions of their personal lifetime. In this vein, a new field of research emerged that investigates the determinants, concomitants, and consequences of longevity values and personal preferences for an extended lifetime across adulthood. Based on a review of available theoretical and empirical work, we identified 3 mindsets on the challenges and potentials of human longevity common in research as well as personal views: (a) an essentialist mindset that builds on ideal principles of an infinite life, aimed at conquering or significantly postponing a biologically determined aging process, (b) a medicalist mindset that appraises aging as being primarily based on quality of health, and (c) a stoicist mindset that associates longevity and lifetime extension with the experience of grace and meaning. In this regard, we submit that motivation for longevity and its behavioral consequences differ depending on what mindsets individuals adopt in a given developmental context. We suggest that mindsets of longevity motivation are embedded in personal belief systems (e.g., death acceptance) that may depend on health, and on context influences (e.g., culture). Mindsets of longevity motivation may be related to differences in health behavior and late-life preparation. We illustrate such ideas with an exploratory analysis from a cross-cultural data set. We discuss the possible implications of these mindsets of longevity motivation for the aging sciences, and with regard to individual ways of approaching old age.

Individual consequences of age stereotypes on older workers : A systematic review

BACKGROUND

The relevance of work participation of older persons is steadily increasing due to demographic changes; however, older workers are often confronted with negative age stereotypes such as being less flexible, adaptable and productive.

OBJECTIVE

Against this background this systematic review summarizes research evidence on individual consequences of age stereotypes on older workers. It further discusses potential processes behind those relationships and gives suggestions for future research and practice.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A systematic literature search was conducted in PsycINFO, Web of Science and Medline to identify relevant studies examining individual effects of age stereotypes on older workers. In addition, all included studies were evaluated with a standardized quality assessment tool.

RESULTS

A total of 25 studies could be included in this review; however, none of those studies met all quality criteria. Most studies found significant associations between negative age stereotypes and decreased self-efficacy, job satisfaction, performance as well as learning, development or increased retirement intentions of older employees.

CONCLUSION

The results of this review indicate a number of negative consequences that negative age stereotypes have on older workers and also serious flaws in the study quality of existing research. It thereby stresses the importance of more high-quality research but also the reduction of those age stereotypes to promote well-being and work participation of older persons.

Motivation moderates the impact of aging stereotypes on effort expenditure

The impact of aging stereotypes on task engagement was examined. Older adults (N = 144, ages 65 to 85) were exposed to primes designed to activate positive or negative stereotypes about aging, with half of the individuals in each stereotype group also assigned to a high-accountability condition to enhance motivation. Participants performed a memory-scan task comprising 2 levels of demands (memory sets of 4 or 7 items), with 2 blocks (5 min each) at each level. Systolic blood pressure recorded throughout the task was used to monitor engagement levels. High accountability was associated with greater engagement at the highest level of task demands. Negative stereotype activation also resulted in elevated engagement levels, but only during the initial trial blocks in the high-accountability condition. Lowest levels of engagement were associated with low accountability, with no difference between stereotype conditions. An analogous differential analysis on these same data using need for cognition and attitudes toward aging as measures of motivation and stereotypes revealed similar trends. Specifically, negative aging attitudes were associated with elevated levels of engagement only in individuals who were high in intrinsic motivation, with the effects greatest at the highest levels of task demands. The results provide a more nuanced perspective on the impact of negative aging stereotypes than suggested in previous research, with the impact on behavior moderated by situational and personal factors associated with motivation. Although potentially negative in the long run, elevated cardiovascular responses indicative of task engagement may represent an adaptive response to support performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Age-Stereotype Internalization and Dissociation: Contradictory Processes or Two Sides of the Same Coin?

There is overwhelming evidence that age stereotypes have systematic effects on older adults’ development. Regarding the direction of these effects, two seemingly opposing phenomena can be observed. On the one hand, it has been shown that older adults engage in self-stereotyping and assimilate their self-views and behavior to commonly held age stereotypes, a process described as stereotype internalization. On the other hand, there is considerable evidence for age-group dissociation, showing that when confronted with negative age stereotypes, older adults tend to distance and dissociate themselves from this negative stereotype. In addition to reviewing evidence for both processes and their respective adaptivity, we propose an integrated model of age-stereotype internalization and dissociation to explain when and why older adults internalize or dissociate from negative age stereotypes.

How do views on aging affect health outcomes in adulthood and late life? Explanations for an established connection

Personal views on aging, such as age stereotypes and subjective aging, can affect various health outcomes in later life. For the past 20 years or so, a large body of experimental and longitudinal work has provided ample evidence for this connection. Thus, it seems timely to better understand the pathways of this linkage. The majority of existing studies has either focused on age stereotypes or subjective aging. This theoretical paper provides a systematic comparison of major theoretical approaches that offer explanations through which different views on aging may affect health. After a short review of findings on the short- and long-term effects of different views on aging, we describe theoretical approaches that provide explanations of underlying mechanisms for the effect of both uni- and multidimensional views on aging on health outcomes. We compare the specific characteristics of these approaches, provide a heuristic framework and outline recommendations for future research routes. A better understanding of the impact of different views on aging on health outcomes is not only relevant for basic research in life-span developmental psychology, geropsychology and health psychology, it has also implications for intervention research and public health practices.

An Examination of Age-Based Stereotype Threat About Cognitive Decline

"Stereotype threat" is often thought of as a singular construct, with moderators and mechanisms that are stable across groups and domains. However, this is not always true. To illustrate this, the current review focuses on the stereotype threat that older adults face about their cognitive abilities. Drawing upon the multithreat framework, I first provide evidence that this is a self-concept threat and not a group-reputation threat. Because this differs from the forms of stereotype threat experienced by other groups (e.g., the threat that minority students face about their intellectual abilities), the moderators of stereotype threat observed in other groups (i.e., group identification) do not always generalize to age-based stereotype threat about cognitive decline. Looking beyond the forms of stereotype threat elicited, this review also provides evidence that the mechanisms underlying stereotype-threat effects may vary across the adult life span. Because of age-related improvements in emotion-regulation abilities, stereotype threat does not seem to reduce older adults' executive-control resources. Overall, this review highlights the need to approach the concept of stereotype threat with more granularity, allowing researchers to design more effective stereotype-threat interventions. It will also shed light on why certain stereotype threat effects "fail to replicate" across domains or groups.