Abstract

Objectives: Older adulthood has often been recognized as a time of increased well-being and positive cognitive biases. However, older adults can also experience many social and identity challenges. We sought to investigate which older adults might be most vulnerable to these difficulties. We propose that to the extent an older adult has age-related contingent self-esteem they will be at risk for lower well-being and negative attentional biases.

Methods: Across three studies, we measured older adults’ self-reported aging self-worth contingencies, as well as various measures of well-being including subjective stress. We then had participants complete a cued-dot probe task, where each trial either began with an aging threat or not.

Results: In an initial pilot study, we found that older adults reporting specific cognitive decline contingencies held an attentional bias toward rejection, primarily when cued with the word senile. In Study 1, we found general aging contingencies to be associated with lower well-being and a rejection bias when cued with old. In Study 2, we found that a stronger rejection bias, particularly when cued with old, was associated with greater stress.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that older adults who are insecure about aging may have lower well-being and negatively biased social cognitive patterns. Negatively biased attentional patterns may play a key role in maintaining feelings of insecurity. Importantly, our research sheds light on those older adults who may not experience a positivity effect.

摘要

目标：成年通常被认为是幸福感增强和积极的认知偏见的时期。但是，老年人也可能遇到许多社交和身份挑战。我们试图调查哪些老年人可能最容易受到这些困难的影响。我们建议，在一定程度上，老年人具有与年龄相关的或然自尊心，他们将面临较低的幸福感和负面的注意偏见的风险。

方法：在三项研究中，我们测量了老年人自我报告的衰老自我价值偶然性，以及包括主观压力在内的各种健康指标。然后，我们让参与者完成了一个提示点探测任务，其中每项试验要么以老化威胁开始，要么没有。

结果：在一项初步的初步研究中，我们发现报告特定认知下降意外事件的老年人对拒绝具有关注的偏见，主要是在提示“老年”一词时。在研究1中，我们发现一般的衰老意外事件与较低的幸福感和与年纪有关的拒绝倾向有关。在研究2中，我们发现，更强的排斥反应偏差，特别是当与线索老，与更大压力。

结论：这些发现表明，对衰老不安全的老年人可能具有较低的幸福感和社会认知方式的负面偏见。负偏向的注意力模式可能在维持不安全感方面起关键作用。重要的是，我们的研究为那些可能没有积极作用的老年人提供了启示。