True performance: reducing stereotype threat effect in older adults’ clinical assessment of memory

ABSTRACT

Empirical studies suggest that memory loss with age is based not only on biological, but also on contextual factors. In line with the stereotype threat (ST) theory, it is argued that the features of the standard clinical situation may contribute to an underestimation of memory performance in older adults (OA). To prevent these shortcomings, we proposed and tested two different interventions that are easy to implement in clinical settings: individuation and self-handicapping. Results indicate that the individuation intervention appears to be a promising solution to alleviate the ST burden in clinical assessment of memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Stereotype threat
• older adults
• memory
• clinical assessment

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Emmanuelle Babot, Laure Mercier, and Almeena Nandjee-Samdjee for their help with the data collection on a draft of this paper while they were graduate students in the department of psychology at the University of Bordeaux. The authors are very grateful to François Ric for his useful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript and to Sarah Barber and another anonymous reviewer for their help in improving this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Adjusted standardized mean difference effect size Hedges’ g was computed instead of Cohen’s d because of unequal sample size between conditions.