Psychology and Aging最新文献

Previous research has demonstrated robust age-related differences in the Stroop effect. Such differences are often attributed to deficits in cognitive control processes, such as goal maintenance ability. Previous research in younger adults has reliably demonstrated that the magnitude of the Stroop effect, particularly for those lower in working memory capacity, can be reduced by providing periodic goal reminders. The present study tested if this benefit of goal reminders extends to another group with reduced goal maintenance ability, older adults. Younger (N = 80) and older (N = 78) adults completed a vocal color-word Stroop task in which most trials were congruent, a condition which induces goal neglect and exacerbates Stroop effects. Critically, half of the participants in each age group were stopped every 24 trials to vocalize either a goal-reminder statement ("The goal is to name the color, not the word") or a nongoal statement ("This is part of my psychology study"). The key finding was that the goal reminders benefitted older adults as evidenced by a reduced Stroop effect in reaction time for the goal condition compared with the nongoal condition. This pattern was not observed for younger adults. Error rate analyses suggested that the benefits of goal reminders were short-lived, with errors primarily reduced in the first half of the run (e.g., 12 trials) following goal reminders. We suggest that goal reminders can be a useful intervention to momentarily improve cognitive control in older adults. We discuss the implications of this finding for theories of cognitive control that implicate reductions in goal maintenance at the center of age-related cognitive decline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

People who migrate at a later age are vulnerable to loneliness: They are challenged to maintain social ties in the origin country while establishing new ties in the destination. In the present study, we investigate (a) the differences in loneliness levels between retirement migrants and older adults who reside in their country of origin (nonmigrants) and (b) the determinants of emotional and social loneliness among retirement migrants. We employ the survey of Dutch retirement migrants abroad (DRM, 2021: Henkens et al., 2022), including 4,995 Dutch retirement migrants residing in 40 destination countries and 1,338 nonmigrants residing in the Netherlands (aged 66-90). Our results showed that retirement migrants were socially lonelier than nonmigrants; however, they were not emotionally lonelier. Among retirement migrants, those who had lost contact with good friends in the country of origin were both emotionally and socially lonelier. Retirement migrants who had more neighbor contact and a higher sense of belonging to the destination were emotionally and socially less lonely. Furthermore, those who had lost contact with their children and had a higher sense of belonging to the Netherlands were emotionally lonelier. The present study presents new insights into the interplay between aging and migration by using a unique representative survey of individuals who migrated at a later age to a new country and points to the risks of the increasingly popular phenomenon of international retirement migration. Differences in levels and predictors of emotional and social loneliness highlight the importance of studying these dimensions separately. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Following the experimental medicine approach, Diehl et al. (2023) demonstrated the malleability of negative views of aging (NVOA), self-efficacy beliefs, and exercise intention in middle-aged and older adults who participated in the AgingPLUS intervention program. The present study built on those findings and addressed (a) whether the intervention resulted in significant improvements in physical activity (PA) and (b) whether the purported mechanistic variables were significant mediators of the intervention's effects on PA outcomes. AgingPLUS used a randomized, single-blind control group design to implement the intervention in a sample of 335 adults aged 45-75 years. This study reports findings from 278 participants (M_age = 60.1 years; SD = 8.3 years) for whom PA measures were available at baseline and the delayed posttest at Week 8. Compared to participants in the Health Education control group and compared to baseline, participants in the AgingPLUS program showed significant improvements in accelerometer-assessed PA (e.g., total daily steps walked; total daily minutes of moderate-to-vigorous PA [MVPA]) and self-reported PA (e.g., weekly kcals burned in MVPA; increase in weekly total minutes of MVPA). Findings from bias-corrected bootstrap mediation analyses yielded partial support for the purported mechanisms of the intervention. Specifically, improvements in NVOA mediated the effects of the intervention on several accelerometer-assessed PA outcomes. Furthermore, improvements in NVOA, general, motivational, and volitional self-efficacy beliefs were significant mediators on several self-reported PA outcomes. Overall, findings provided support for small but significant effects of AgingPLUS on PA outcomes and supportive evidence for several of the theoretical mechanisms tested. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Existing research shows a clear link between the way people experience the aging process (i.e., self-perceptions of aging) and their health, cognitive abilities, and well-being. In contrast, there is little research on the association between self-perceptions of aging and social functioning. This study examines the relationship between awareness of age-related gains and losses as two facets of self-perceptions of aging and social approach and avoidance goals. Social approach goals (i.e., goals that focus on positive, desirable social outcomes) and social avoidance goals (i.e., goals that focus on negative, undesirable social outcomes) play a fundamental role in shaping individuals' social experiences and behaviors. We hypothesize that awareness of age-related gains is associated with social approach goals, whereas awareness of age-related losses is associated with social avoidance goals. In an experience sampling study with N = 117 participants aged 18-85 years (M = 40.4, SD = 17.1), we examined interindividual differences in participants' awareness of age-related gains and losses and how these relate to social goals. We focused on social goals in everyday social situations (aggregated state) and as individual dispositions (trait). As hypothesized, awareness of age-related gains was positively associated with social approach (but not avoidance) goals, while awareness of age-related losses was positively associated with social avoidance (but not approach) goals. These associations largely persisted even after controlling for age. These findings suggest that perceptions of age-related gains and losses are important factors in how people navigate their social lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) posits that older and younger adults have different life goals due to differences in perceived remaining lifetime. Younger adults focus more on future-oriented knowledge exploration and forming new friendships, while older adults prioritize present-focused emotional regulation and maintaining close relationships. While previous research has found these age differences manifest in autobiographical textual expressions, their presence in verbal communication remains unexplored. We recruited 36 older adults and 36 younger adults to form 12 younger adults-younger adults dyads, 12 older adults-older adults dyads, and 12 younger adults-older adults dyads engaging in three conversational scenarios. Analysis of communication transcripts using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count revealed that in intragenerational communication, older adults used more present-focused and family-related words, and fewer future-focused, negative emotion, and knowledge acquisition words compared to younger adults, aligning with SST predictions. However, in intergenerational communication, younger and older adults showed similar patterns in future-focused, cognitive, and family-related language use. This suggests that participants adjusted their goal orientations to accommodate each other, mitigating the age differences proposed by SST and partially supporting the Interpersonal Cognitive Consistency Model. These findings indicate that while SST explains semantic expressions in intragenerational communication, group dynamics toward verbal consistency play a more vital role in intergenerational communication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study investigates whether electroencephalogram activity reflects age-related memory changes during encoding. We recorded scalp electroencephalogram in 151 young adults (aged 18-30) and 37 older adults (aged 60-85) as they memorized lists of words. Participants studied the word lists either under full attention or while performing a secondary task that required them to make semantic judgments about each word. Although the secondary task reduced recall among all participants, differences in recall performance between the age groups were smaller when participants performed a secondary task at encoding. Older adults also exhibited distinct neural subsequent memory effects, characterized by less negativity in the alpha frequencies compared to young adults. Multivariate classifiers trained on neural features successfully predicted subsequent memory at the trial level in both young and older adults, and captured the differential effects of task demands on memory performance between young and older adults. The findings indicate that neural biomarkers of successful memory vary with both cognitive aging and task demands. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Prosociality tends to increase with age, but whether older adults (OA) are more willing than younger adults (YA) to extend their prosocial behaviors beyond close social circles remains a topic of debate. This study aimed to address this controversy and explore the underlying mechanisms of age-related differences in prosociality through the lens of social discounting and gain-and-loss framing. One hundred twenty-three younger adults and 135 older adults participated in a social discounting task (measuring prosocial tendencies toward various social relationships) with various framings (self-oriented framing, other-oriented framing, and control condition). Compared to younger adults, older adults exhibited higher overall prosociality and treated socially close and distant others more evenly, indicating lower levels of selectivity in prosociality. Notably, the interaction effect between age and framing revealed that other-oriented framing amplified the prosocial tendencies of older adults, particularly toward socially distant others but not younger adults. These findings suggest other-oriented framing specifically reduced older adults' selectivity in prosociality, highlighting their prioritization of others' welfare and aversion to others' losses. This supports the notion that older adults' prosociality may be driven by other-oriented motivation rather than self-interest. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have relatively poor emotional well-being, but little is known about their emotion regulation (ER) processes. In the present study, we investigate whether individuals of varying age and cognitive status might benefit emotionally from specific ER strategy selection instructions. Young adults (aged 21-34, n = 66), cognitively normal older adults (CN; aged 70-84, n = 90), and older adults with MCI (aged 70-84, n = 60) completed a laboratory ER task involving high-arousal negative film clips. They were instructed to (a) regulate using any ER strategy and then (b) regulate using a specific ER strategy, depending on the randomly assigned condition: cognitive distraction or detached reappraisal. Participants were video recorded while viewing the film clips and reported on their strategy use, experience of emotion, and perceived ER success. We examined three indicators of ER success: emotional experience, emotional expression, and perceived ER success. Generally, older adults with MCI did not differ greatly from young adults and CN older adults in how successfully they regulated negative emotions in this controlled context. Older adults with MCI expressed less of the target emotion being regulated when instructed to use a specific strategy compared to when instructed to spontaneously select any strategy. Additionally, older adults with MCI demonstrated benefits associated with distraction instructions over reappraisal instructions in terms of reduced experience of the target emotion and greater perceived success. Findings partially support the idea that cognitively impaired older adults may benefit from instructional support, especially encouragement to use attentional deployment strategies, when regulating high-arousal negative emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The article explores personal values among older adults in relation to their "offspring status." Erikson's theory of psychosocial development and Schwartz's theory of human values suggest a positive relationship between having offspring and prosocial values. We tested this hypothesis by comparing older adults who have none, one, or two generations of descendants: childless (with no descendants), grandchildless (with adult children and no grandchildren), and grandparents. We conducted a hierarchical multilevel regression analysis using data from Round 9 of the European Social Survey on a subsample of 12,713 respondents older than 65 from 29 European countries. Our model predicted preferences for four of the Schwartz higher order value types (Self-Transcendence, Self-Enhancement, Openness to Change, and Conservation) among the three categories of older adults based on their offspring status, controlling for individual-level (gender, education level, general health) and macro-level variables (Human Development Index). All but Openness to Change values are significantly predicted by older adults' offspring status. Having grandchildren is positively associated with Self-Transcendence and Conservation values (socially oriented values) and negatively with Self-Enhancement (values with self-oriented focus). The article discusses the theoretical implications of the obtained findings, focusing on plausible mechanisms connecting the offspring status and value orientations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Human cognitive abilities exhibit positive interrelationships that can be represented by a latent general intelligence factor (g). Differentiation hypotheses propose that there are systematic interindividual differences in the strength of g, specifically along the dimensions of ability level (ability differentiation) and age (age differentiation). Despite the potential implications for cognitive theory and assessment, the available evidence on the matter is inconclusive. We present comprehensive analyses of differentiation effects across the lifespan, drawing on the meta-analytic integration of nonlinear factor analyses with German standardization samples (N = 4,129) of the most widely used intelligence tests worldwide (i.e., the Wechsler tests). Results support ability differentiation at all ages, with particularly large effect sizes in young adults, and suggest a complex pattern of age differentiation and dedifferentiation across the lifespan. These findings challenge the uniformity of g, highlighting the need to account for differentiation effects in cognitive theories and assessment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).