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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Motivation and representational processes in adulthood
— the effects of social accountability and information relevance | | Author(s) | Thomas M Hess, Daniel C Rosenberg, Sandra J Waters |
| Journal title | Psychology and Aging, vol 16, no 4, December 2001 |
| Pages | pp 629-642 |
| Keywords | Cognitive processes ; Learning capacity ; Mental clarity ; Age groups [elderly] ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The role of motivation in determining age differences in social representation was examined. 147 adults (93 women, 54 men) aged 20-83 were given an impression formation task that attempted to manipulate innovation by varying the characteristics of the target and the extent to which participants would be held accountable for their impressions. It was hypothesised that increasing age would be associated with greater selectivity in the use of available cognitive resources to support the construction of accurate representations. Support for this hypothesis was obtained when trait inferences and recall were examined. Specifically, older people made more accurate trait inferences and recalled more information when the target was similar in age, or they were held accountable for their impressions. In contrast, younger adults demonstrated similar levels of accuracy across conditions. The fact that these effects were observed when cognitive resources were controlled suggest a motivational effect that is independent of age differences in cognitive ability. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020206207 A |
| Classmark | DA: DE: DF: BB: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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