According to Terror Management Theory as applied to ageism, older adults may be associated with mortality, thereby generating death-thought accessibility, stereotypes, and mixed emotions among younger adults. However, it is unclear how older adults' health conditions, such as dementia, affect ageist attitudes and mortality salience. In the current…

This study examined adult age differences on five tests of divergent thinking: associational fluency, expressional fluency, ideational fluency, word fluency, and consequences. Our hypothesis was that young adults ( M = 20.53, n = 60) would score higher than old adults (M = 72.10, n = 60) under standard timed test conditions, but old adults would…

Six seminars attended by 45 college students aged 19-23 and 25 Senior Guest students over 60 positively influenced younger students' interest in gerontology and acceptance of older persons socially and academically. Seniors also developed more positive attitudes toward younger students as well as younger family members. (SK)

Compared retention of old and young adults in a Brown-Peterson task. Older adults recalled fewer letters correctly and the magnitude of the difference was related positively to the length of the retention interval. The main effect of age and the age by retention interval interaction was significant. (Author/JAC)

This review briefly covers the study of attitudes toward aging in general. Research on attitudes of young people toward the old, their contact with the old, efforts to change their attitudes toward the aged, and implications for counseling young people with a view toward their own aging are presented. (Author)

Tested the hypothesis that increased task difficulty elicits more efficient problem-solving strategies from older adults, using "Twenty Questions" tasks with either 64 or 10,000 possible solutions. Although younger adults were more efficient, there was not evidence that task difficulty affected problem-solving for either age group. (Author/JAC)

Thoughts about the self in the future, called possible selves, are an important component of the current identity of individuals. This study specifically focused on possible selves in the domain of memory and cognition. Both older and younger groups spontaneously reported possible selves in the cognitive domain, e.g., "learning a new skill," but…

Studied sex role self-concept and convergence of sex roles in later life. Young, middle-aged, and older adults rated themselves on Bem Sex Role Inventory items, describing themselves at age 20, 45, and 70. Both men and women evidenced high masculine self descriptions related to middle age. (Author/JAC)

Israeli men aged 23-95 (n=198) rated the importance of sources of meaning in life. The oldest groups rated social causes, human values, culture/tradition, financial security significantly higher. The lack of significant differences among middle aged, young old, and old old suggested that continuity strategies are used to adapt to the aging…

Two divergent views of linguistic ability in adulthood currently exist. One view maintains that verbal ability is preserved in old age, while the other view maintains that verbal ability declines, especially comprehension. To analyze the effects of semantic priming during sentence processing by 30 younger adults (mean age, 25 years) and 30 older…

Tested the hypothesis that increasing problem complexity elicits strategies of greater efficiency from older adults. Responses of older and younger adults were compared in a version of "Twenty Questions." No evidence was found that older adults seek more efficient strategies. Both groups maintained the same strategies. (Author/JAC)

Examined adult age differences in use of context to study and retrieve information. Young and old adults were presented with a series of homographs (targets). Recognition memory for targets was tested. Recognition decreased in both groups as the retrieval context became more dissimilar to the study context. (Author/JAC)

Research data elicited among subjects aged 14-40, on their attitudes toward the elderly (age 65 and over) indicates that older persons are viewed neutrally on many traits, better than average on some, and stereotypically on others. While they are viewed as weaker, poorer, and less powerful, they are also seen as having greater humanity,…

The poorer performance of older people in laboratory tests of episodic memory may result from failures or deficiencies in metamemory processes, e.g., failure to monitor task or individual item difficulty. To study age differences in prediction of memory performance, an associative matching task was used to compare young (N=20) and older (N=20)…

Uses qualitative methods to examine the similarities and differences in the meaning of aging for young and older adults. Results show that younger adults associate aging with major events in their lives and perceive aging negatively. By contrast, older adults associate aging with everyday events and they perceive aging positively. (Author/GCP)