Reduced cognitive capacity impairs the malleability of older adults’ negative attitudes to stigmatized individuals

ABSTRACT

Background: Although engaging explicit regulatory strategies may reduce negative bias toward outgroup members, these strategies are cognitively demanding and thus may not be effective for older adults (OA) who have reduced cognitive resources. The current study therefore examines whether individual differences in cognitive capacity disrupt OA’ ability to explicitly regulate their bias to stigmatized individuals. Methods: Young and OA were instructed to explicitly regulate their negative bias toward stigmatized individuals by using an explicit reappraisal strategy. Regulatory success was assessed as a function of age and individual differences in cognitive capacity (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, the role of executive function in implementing cognitive reappraisal strategies was examined by using a divided attention manipulation. Results: Results from Experiment 1 revealed that individual differences in OA’ cognitive capacity disrupted their ability to regulate their negative emotional response to stigma. In Experiment 2, it was found that dividing attention in young adults (YA) significantly reduced their regulatory success as compared to YA’ regulatory capacity in the full attention condition. As expected, dividing YA’ attention made their performance similar to OA with relatively preserved cognitive capacity. Conclusion: Together, the results from this study demonstrated that individual differences in cognitive capacity predicted OA’ ability to explicitly regulate their negative bias to a range of stigmatized individuals.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Eunice Lee, Alexis Carpenter, Kristie Hsu, and Jake Savage for assistance with data collection. We also thank Nalini Ambady for support in conducting aspects of this project.

Notes

¹ The first wave of young adult data for both Experiments 1 and 2 were collected in Boston (N = 40; M_age = 19.28 years, SD = 1.09; 23 female), but executive function scores were not collected on this sample. In order to collect these data and replicate the original results, a separate group of young adults participated in both the full and divided attention studies at Indiana University (N = 105; M_age = 20.61 years, SD = 2.19; 71 female). In order to validate the data between the two disparate geographic samples, we compared the regulatory success scores in the full attention and divided attention conditions. There was no significant difference between the two populations in either condition: (full attention: M_Boston: .62, SD = .56; M_Indiana = .80, SD = .69; t(98) = 1.08, p = .28; divided attention: M_Boston: .34, SD = .51; M_Indiana = .44, SD = .58; t(43) = .57, p = .57). We therefore collapsed across these two samples in the reported analyses. However, analyses using executive function scores are only for the Indiana population.

² See footnote 1.

³ See footnote 1.

⁴ See footnote 1.

Additional information

Funding

Support for this research was provided in part by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute Aging to ACK