Stereotype Threat and the Cognitive Performance of Older Adults

Abstract

Because of age-related cognitive declines, people sometimes expect older adults to be incompetent, senile, or extremely forgetful. Research on stereotype threat suggests that these negative expectations can interfere with older adults’ performance on cognitive tests and can cause them to underperform compared to their potential. However, research also shows that not all cognitive domains, and not all older adults, are equally affected by stereotype threat. Stereotype threat effects seem to occur most reliably on cognitive tasks where there are larger deficit expectations and for people who have concerns or negative expectations about aging and cognition. In addition to outlining these task and individual differences, in this chapter we also review potential mechanisms underlying these effects and discuss the applied implications of stereotype threat for how older adults’ memory is assessed in clinical and eyewitness settings.

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