Psychophysiological Correlates of Aging Stereotypes and Personal Aging Beliefs

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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.