Psychophysiological Correlates of Aging Stereotypes and Personal Aging Beliefs

描述(申请人提供)：对于老年人来说，对自己的衰老持有负面看法可能会对健康和长寿有害。我们的长期目标是阐明衰老信念导致健康结果的心理生理学机制。我们认为，消极的衰老自我认知将导致老年人对刻板印象的年龄相关麻烦的重复和高度的生理反应。这种高度的应激反应反过来会导致生理系统的失调，为疾病和疾病埋下伏笔。相反，更积极的老龄化观念可能会削弱消极的老龄化刻板印象的影响，改善个体应对与年龄刻板印象相关的压力，从而有利于健康。这一R03申请是对最初的R21建议的重新构建：审查者的反馈建议寻求一种更适合于研究的资助机制，而不是探索一个新的领域，而是系统地扩大对衰老信念和刻板印象在健康结果中的作用的理解。拟议研究的具体目的是检查老年人目前对自己衰老的信念和接触衰老刻板印象如何影响自主神经(心血管)、内分泌(皮质醇)和免疫(IL-6)反应性的标志物。老年人在完成一项具有挑战性的记忆任务之前，会接触到关于衰老和记忆的负面、刻板印象确认或积极、刻板印象不确定的信息，或者与年龄无关的信息。心血管、皮质醇和IL-6的测量将在记忆挑战之前、期间和之后进行评估。我们假设，在50岁及以上的成年人中，对自己衰老的积极信念将缓冲负面衰老刻板印象对记忆挑战的生理反应的影响。这项试点工作将社会心理学理论与心理生理学模型结合在一起，这些模型涉及将压力与健康联系起来的身心通路中的多个生理系统。确定个人和社会对衰老的表现与自主神经、内分泌和免疫相关，将扩大先前在衰老信念与健康研究中的发现。这项试点研究将为方案研究奠定基础，旨在描述将老龄化信念和陈规定型观念与健康联系起来的机制，以便制定具有成本效益的干预措施，旨在减轻这些因素对老年人健康的负担。这个项目是了解将消极的衰老信念和刻板印象与老年人的负面健康后果联系起来的生理途径的第一步。它试图确定暴露在负面衰老刻板印象中的生理后果，个人对衰老的负面信念是否会增加这些刻板印象的生理影响，以及重要的是，积极的衰老信念是否可以减少消极衰老刻板印象的影响。了解老龄化信念和陈规定型观念如何相互作用影响生理健康，有助于制定旨在降低老年人保健成本的干预措施。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): For older adults, holding negative beliefs about one's own aging can be detrimental to health and longevity. Our long term goal is to elucidate the psychophysiological mechanisms by which aging beliefs lead to health outcomes. We propose that negative aging self-perceptions will lead to older adults' repeated and heightened physiological responding to stereotypically age-related hassles. Such heightened stress responses will in turn contribute to the dysregulation of physiological systems, setting the stage for illness and disease. On the contrary, more positive aging perceptions may weaken the impact of negative aging stereotypes, improving individuals' coping with age-stereotype relevant stress, and thus, benefiting health. This R03 application is a reframing of an initial R21 proposal: Reviewers' feedback suggested seeking a funding mechanism better suited for research constituting, not the exploration of a new area, but rather, extending systematically the understanding of the role of aging beliefs and stereotypes in health outcomes. The specific aim of the proposed research is to examine how older adults' current beliefs about their own aging and exposure to aging stereotypes impact markers of autonomic (cardiovascular), endocrine (cortisol) and immune (IL-6) reactivity. Older adults will be exposed to negative, stereotype confirming or positive, stereotype disconfirming information about aging and memory, or age-irrelevant information, prior to performing a challenging memory task. Cardiovascular, cortisol and IL-6 measures will be assessed prior to, during, and following the memory challenge. We hypothesize that among adults 50 and older, positive beliefs about their own aging will buffer the effects of negative aging stereotype exposure on physiological responses to the memory challenge. This pilot work incorporates social psychological theory with psychophysiological models that implicate multiple physiological systems in mind-body pathways linking stress to health. Identifying autonomic, endocrine and immune correlates of individual and social representations of aging will extend previous findings in the study of aging beliefs and health. This pilot research will lay the foundation for programmatic research aimed at delineating mechanisms linking aging beliefs and stereotypes to health in order to develop cost-effective interventions designed to reduce the burden of these factors on older adults' health. This project is a first step toward understanding the physiological pathways that link negative aging beliefs and stereotypes to older adults' negative health outcomes. It seeks to identify the physiological consequences of exposure to negative aging stereotypes, whether personal negative beliefs about aging increase the physiological impact of these stereotypes, and, importantly, whether positive aging beliefs can reduce the impact of negative aging stereotypes. Understanding how aging beliefs and stereotypes interact to impact physiological well-being can contribute to the development of interventions aimed at reducing older adults' health care costs.