Stereotype threat in older adults

描述(由申请人提供)：几乎每个人都至少有一个与负面刻板印象有关的社会身份。对于一些人来说，这是他们的年龄，对另一些人来说，这是他们的种族、体重、宗教、社会经济地位或政治派别。问题是，根据刻板印象威胁理论，当人们遇到这些负面的刻板印象时，他们的表现往往逊于他们的潜力，并在这样做的过程中无意中证实了刻板印象。例如，老年人被刻板地认为记忆力差。当这种刻板印象在老年人中变得突出时，他们的记忆能力往往会下降。这具有严重的临床意义。在一项研究中，刻板印象威胁使老年人得分低于痴呆症临床分界点的比例从14%增加到70%。到2030年，20%的美国人将超过65岁，而且现在联邦医疗保险覆盖了每年一次的痴呆症筛查，了解为什么刻板印象威胁会损害老年人的表现，以及如何改善与刻板印象威胁相关的表现缺陷，这一点很重要。在目标1中，我们测试了调节焦点在促进老年人刻板印象威胁效应中的作用。 调节焦点理论导致了一种违反直觉的假设，即虽然刻板印象威胁在任务强调收益时会影响绩效，但当任务强调损失时，它应该会提高绩效。我们的初步数据支持这一点；刻板印象威胁会损害老年人在记住时的记忆，导致收益，但在忘记时改善记忆会导致损失。在这一应用中，我们通过考察刻板印象威胁如何影响老年人在其他认知领域(如语言流利性、视觉空间技能、决策质量)和非认知领域(即筛选的视觉和听力)的表现来测试这些结果的概括性。这些领域中的许多以前都没有被研究过。如果我们的监管重点预测得到一致支持，这将表明，强调在评估过程中避免错误的重要性可能是一种简单、免费的临床干预措施，以消除刻板印象的威胁影响。在目标2中，我们考察了生理唤醒对老年人刻板印象威胁效应的贡献。最近我们提出了一种唤醒偏向竞争(ABC)理论。根据我们的ABC理论，觉醒增加了对高优先级刺激的处理，减少了对低优先级刺激的处理。初步研究支持这一假设。与这一应用相关的是，基于调节焦点理论，我们预测在刻板印象下，与威胁损失相关的信息是高优先级的，而与收益相关的信息是低优先级的。因此，根据ABC理论，觉醒应该会增强上述预测的调节焦点效应。最后，目标3是研究刻板印象威胁对老年人的功能影响。因此，我们测试我们的目标1和2假设的领域都与老年人的健康、实用和经济健康相关。我们还测试了这样的假设，即阿尔茨海默病的基因测试具有在无症状、健康的老年人中诱导刻板印象威胁和降低记忆能力的风险。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Almost everyone has at least one social identity that is associated with a negative stereotype. For some people it is their age, for others it is their race, weight, religion, socioeconomic status or political affiliation. Problematically, according t stereotype threat theory, when people encounter these negative stereotypes they often underperform compared to their potential, and in doing so inadvertently confirm the stereotype. For example, older adults are stereotyped as having poor memory abilities. When this stereotype becomes salient to older adults their memory performance tends to decrease. This has serious clinical implications. In one study, stereotype threat increased the proportion of older adults scoring below the clinical cut-off for dementia from 14 to 70%. Given that 20% of Americans will be over the age of 65 by 2030, and that annual dementia screenings are now covered by Medicare, it is important to understand why stereotype threat impairs older adults' performance and how stereotype-threat-related performance deficits can be ameliorated. In Aim 1, we test the role of regulatory focus in contributing to older adults' stereotype threat effects. Regulatory focus theory leads to the counterintuitive hypothesis that although stereotype threat impairs performance when the task emphasizes gains, it should improve performance when the task emphasizes losses. Our preliminary data supports this; stereotype threat impaired older adults' memory when remembering led to gains, but improved memory when forgetting led to losses. In this application we test the generalizability of these results by examining how stereotype threat affects older adults' performance in other cognitive (e.g., verbal fluency, visuospatial skills, decision quality) and non-cognitive (i.e., screened vision and hearing) domains. Many of these domains have not previously been examined. If our regulatory focus predictions are consistently supported, it would suggest that emphasizing the importance of avoiding errors during assessments could be a simple, no-cost clinical intervention to eliminate stereotype threat effects. In Aim 2, we examine the contribution of physiological arousal to older adults' stereotype threat effects. Recently we proposed an arousal-biased competition (ABC) theory. According to our ABC theory, arousal increases the processing of high priority stimuli and decreases processing of low priority stimuli. Preliminary studies support this hypothesis. Of relevance to this application, based upon the regulatory focus theory we predict that under stereotype threat loss-related information is high priority and gain-related information is low priority. Thus, according to ABC theory, arousal should enhance the regulatory focus effects predicted above. Finally, Aim 3 is to examine the functional implications of stereotype threat for older adults. Thus, the domains in which we test our Aim 1 and 2 hypotheses each have relevance for older adults' health, practical, and financial well-being. We also test the hypothesi that genetic testing for Alzheimer's disease carries the risk of inducing stereotype threat and reducing memory performance in asymptomatic, healthy older adults.