Stereotype threat in older adults

描述（由申请人提供）：几乎每个人都至少有一种与负面刻板印象相关的社会身份。对一些人来说，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刻板印象时，他们的表现往往低于他们的潜力，这样做无意中证实了这种刻板印象。例如，老年人被认为记忆力差。当这种刻板印象对老年人变得明显时，他们的记忆表现往往会下降。这具有严重的临床意义。在一项研究中，刻板印象威胁使得分低于痴呆症临床分界点的老年人比例从14%增加到70%。考虑到到2030年，20%的美国人将超过65岁，而且每年的痴呆症筛查现在由联邦医疗保险（Medicare）覆盖，理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，是很重要的。在目标1中，我们检验了调节焦点在老年人刻板印象威胁效应中的作用。

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.