PERCEPTIONS OF FORGETFULNESS IN ADULTHOOD

这项建议关注的是成年人在社会环境中对健忘者印象的年龄差异。了解年轻人和老年人如何看待健忘的人，是一个重要的问题，对成年后期的人际关系和社交机会有影响。过去的研究已经证明了一种基于年龄的双重标准，年轻人的健忘行为被归因于缺乏注意力和努力，但老年人的同样的健忘行为被归因于缺乏能力，被认为是精神困难的迹象。分离可能导致对健忘的年轻人和老年人的不同印象的变量是理解老年人在社会环境中的看法的重要一步。这项研究的目的是：a)了解年轻人和老年人在对健忘的他人的记忆评估上的差异；b)提供新的证据，说明遗忘的后果对人们对记忆失败的感知的作用；以及c)探索记忆老化知识和自我报告的记忆能力的个体差异对他人记忆评估的影响。提出了两个利用人-知觉范式的实验。参与者阅读简短的小插曲，这些小插曲描述了一个虚构的人物忘记了一些东西，以及随之而来的遗忘的轻微后果(仅仅是一个不便)或重大后果(导致更大的问题)。采用混合析因设计，以参与者年龄(年轻、年长)和性格年龄(年轻、年长)为组间变量，结果(小、大)为重复测量变量。相关的衡量标准包括归因和记忆意见评级。在实验1中，遗忘的后果仅限于健忘的性格。在实验2中，健忘的性格和他/她所处的社会环境中的其他人经历了遗忘的后果。预期的结果将为个人和情景变量在记忆失败的因果归因中的作用提供新的证据，并为进一步研究成人记忆评估提供一个框架。

This proposal focuses on adult age differences in impressions of forgetful persons in social contexts. Understanding how younger and older adults' view forgetful people is an important issue with implications for interpersonal relationships and social opportunities in late adulthood. Past research has documented an age-based double standard, where forgetful behavior in younger adults is attributed to lack of attention and effort, but the very same forgetful behavior in older adults is attributed to lack of ability and considered a sign of mental difficulty. Isolating the variables that may lead to differential impressions of forgetful younger and older people is an important step in understanding how older adults are perceived in social contexts. The objectives of the proposed research are to: a) understand how younger and older adults differ in memory appraisal of forgetful others; b) provide new evidence on the role of the consequences of the forgetting on people's perceptions of memory failures; and c) explore the influence of individual differences in knowledge of memory aging and self-reported memory ability on memory appraisal of others. Two experiments are proposed that utilize a person-perception paradigm. Participants read short vignettes that describe a fictitious character who has forgotten something and a minor consequence (merely an inconvenience) or a major consequence (causes greater problems) of the forgetting follows. Mixed factorial designs are used with participant age (young, old) and character age (young, old) as between-group variables and consequence (minor, major) as a repeated measures variable. Dependent measures include attribution and memory opinion ratings. In Experiment 1, the consequences of the forgetting are confined to the forgetful character. In Experiment 2, the forgetful character and others in his/her social environment experience the consequences of the forgetting. Expected results will provide new evidence on the role of person and situational variables in causal attributions of memory failures and a framework for further research on memory appraisal in adulthood.