Social Cognition and Personality
November 14th, 2007
Just To Reiterate...
• Social judgements are made quickly.
• Although older adults have been in numerous
social situations in their lives (i.e., have a lot of
knowledge), if they can’t access it, those
won’t guide their judgements.
• Hence having access to social information is
very important.
Tonight’s Lecture
• What is the role of emotion as we age?
• How do stereotypes affect older adults?
• What is collaborative cognition and how does
it impact older adults?
• We will then talk about how personality and
identity are affected by age.
Emotion in Later Life (Lawton, 2001)
• Affect Salience: No age difference
• Affect Frequency:
– Do not appear to differ in frequency of negative
affect, but less positive affect.
– Effect of health?
– Change in valence less apparent in longitudinal
than cross-sectional studies.
• Affect Intensity: Mixed evidence
– Self-ratings less intense.
– Emotion on the spot show no age differences.
Emotion in Later Life
• Emotion regulation: Perceived control of
emotion greater with age.
• Theories:
– Control theory of late-life emotion (Schulz and
Heckhausen, 1998)
– Integration of cognition and emotion in late life
(Labouvie-Vief et al., 1989)
– Blanchard-Fields (1998): Ability to use
accommodative strategies.
– Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen,
1995)
Cognitive Style as a Processing Goal
• People with high need for closure and an
inability to tolerate ambiguous situations
– Prefer order and predictability
– Are uncomfortable with ambiguity
– Are closed-minded
– Prefer quick and decisive answers
• It may be that limited cognitive resources and
motivational differences are both age-related
• Declines in working memory may be related to
need for closure
What Are Stereotypes?
• A special kind of social knowledge structure
or social belief that represent organized
prior knowledge about a group of people
that affects how we interpret new
information.
– Young and older adults hold similar
stereotypes about aging
Age Stereotypes and Perceived
Competence
• An age-based double standard operates when people
judge older adults’ failures in memory
– In this case, younger adults judge older adults
who are forgetful more harshly than older adults
do
– However, younger adults also make positive
judgments about older adults being more
responsible despite such memory failures
How Are Stereotypes Activated?
• Implicit stereotypes
– Automatically activated negative stereotypes
about aging guide behavior beyond our
awareness
• Implicit negative stereotypes can negatively
influence performance
• Chasteen et al. (2002) study
• Implicit stereotyping influences the way
communicate with older adults
– Patronizing speech
• Includes slow speech, simple vocabulary, careful
enunciation, a demeaning emotional tone, and
superficial conversation
Activation of Stereotypes in Older
and Younger Adults
• Chasteen et al. (2002) paper
• Explicit vs. implicit tasks
• Implicit task: Prime (young, old or XXXX) & target
stimuli in a lexical decision task (word vs. nonword) at short onset synchrony (300 ms for
automatic processing & 2000 ms for controlled
processing).
• Fiske et al. (2002): People’s attitudes of groups
derived from perception of warmth and
competence.
• Implicit stereotyping vs. implicit prejudice
Four Questions Raised by Chasteen
1) Do younger and older adults hold the same
stereotypes about the young and the old?
2) Are people more positive about their own
age group?
3) Who is prejudiced against whom?
4) Do people correct their automatic response
when they have a chance to do so?
Main Conclusions
• Automatic stereotyping seems present, but
unclear about automatic prejudice.
• Young and older adults demonstrate strong
stereotype activation for stereotypes for elderly,
but relatively weak activation for young
stereotypes. Better defined stereotypes of the
old?
• Prejudice: Faster responses to positive traits in
both groups.
• Automatic ageism?
Stereotype Threat
• An evoked fear of being judged in accordance
with a negative stereotype about a group to
which you belong
– Do negative stereotypes influence the
cogitative functioning of older adults?
What is the Impact of Stereotype
Threat on Memory Performance?
• Study by Hess et al. (2003) on stereotype
threat associated with negative cultural
beliefs about the impact of aging on
memory.
• Threat may affect performance by raising
anxiety or lowering motivation.
• Threat is hypothesized to affect most those
who strongly identify with the stereotyped
domain.
Stereotype Threat (Hess et al., 2003)
• Informed young and older adults about
research findings on memory (either positive
or negative) & then given a memory test to
“explore these findings”.
• Prime/trait term test between 2 tests: Had to
categorize trait as good or bad.
Conclusions
• Conditions maximizing threat for older
adults yielded a lower performance than for
non-exposed older adults & younger adults.
• The threat affected older adults the more
they valued their memory.
• Memory covaried with the strength of
activations of the negative stereotype.
• Stereotype threat also influenced strategy
use.
What If We Primed Positive
Stereotypes about Memory?
• Stein, Blanchard-Fields and Hertzog (2002)
made similar conclusions as Hess on the
impact of negative stereotype threat although
found the need to be unaware of a prime.
• They found though that positive stereotypes
did not increase memory performance in
older adults.
Multidimensionality of Personal
Control
• Personal control is the degree to which one
believes that one’s performance in a situation
depends on something that one personally
does
• One’s sense of control depends on which
domain, such as intelligence or health, is being
assessed
Control Strategies
• Brandtstädter proposes that the preservation and
stabilization of a positive view of the self and
personal development in later life involve three
interdependent processes
– Assimilative strategies
• Used when one must prevent losses important to
self-esteem
– Accommodative strategies
• Involve readjusting one’s goals and aspirations
– Immunizing mechanisms
• Alter the effects of self-discrepant information
Control Strategies
• Heckhausen and Schulz view control-related
strategies in terms of primary and secondary
control
– Primary control helps change the environment
to match one’s goals
• It involves bringing the environment into line with
one’s desires and goals
• Secondary control reappraises the environment
in light of one’s decline in functioning
– The individual turns inward toward the self
and assesses the situation
Control Strategies
• Secondary control reappraises the environment in
light of one’s decline in functioning
– The individual turns inward toward the self and
assesses the situation
• Primary control is said to have functional primacy
over secondary control
– Primary control has more adaptive value to the
individual
– Secondary control simply minimizes losses or
expands levels of primary control
Some Criticisms Regarding Primary
Control
• Cross-cultural perspectives challenge the
notion of primacy and primary control.
• In collectivists societies, the emphasis is not
on individualistic strategies such as those
found in primary control, but to establish
interdependence with others, to be connected
to them, and bound to a large social
institution.
Collaborative Cognition
• Occurs when two or more people work
together to solve a cognitive task
• Collaborating with others in recollection helps
facilitate memory in older adults
• But there can also be collaborative inhibition
of memory (Ross et al., 2004).
Social Context and Memory
• Importantly, the social context can serve a
facilitative function in older adults’ memory
performance
• Thus, it is important not to limit our
explanations of social cognitive change simply
to cognitive processing variables, but to also
include social factors
Social Decision-Making & Executive
Function
• MacPherson et al. (2002)
• DL regions: executive functions & working
memory
• VM: Limbic system – processing of emotions
and regulation of social behaviour.
• DL regions show early change in aging vs. VM
regions.
Social Decision-Making vs. Executive
Function
• DL tasks: Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, Self-Ordered
Pointing Task, & Delayed Response Task
• VM Tasks: Gambling Task, Faux Pas Task, & Emotion
Identification Task.
• General conclusion: Age effects were found on DL
tasks, but not on VM-dependent tasks.
• Perception of negative emotions did appear to
change slightly, but were correlated mostly with
memory measures.
Levels of Analysis and Personality Research
• Dispositional traits
– Consists of aspects of personality that are
consistent across different contexts and can be
compared across a group along a continuum
representing high and low degrees of the
characteristics.
• Personal concerns
• Life narrative
The Case for Stability: The Five-Factor
Model
• Consists of five independent dimensions of
personality
– Neuroticism
– Extraversion
– Openness to experience
– Agreeableness
– Conscientiousness
Neuroticism
• Has six facets:
– Anxiety
– Hostility
– Self-consciousness
– Depression
– Impulsiveness
– Vulnerability
Extraversion
• Has six facets in two groups:
– Interpersonal traits
• Warmth
• Gregariousness
• Assertiveness
– Temperamental traits
• Activity
• Excitement seeking
• Positive emotions
Openness to Experience
• Has six areas:
– Fantasy
– Aesthetics
– Action
– Ideas
– Values
– Occupational choice
Agreeableness
• Agreeable people are not:
– Skeptical
– Mistrustful
– Callous
– Unsympathetic
– Stubborn
– Rude
– Skillful manipulators
– Aggressive go-getters
Conscientiousness
• Conscientious people are:
– Hardworking
– Ambitious
– Energetic
– Scrupulous
– Persevering
– Desirous to make something of themselves
What is the Evidence for Trait Stability?
• Using the GZTS (n=114), Costa and McCrae found:
– Over a 12-year period, 10 personality traits
measured by GZTS remained stable.
– However Costa & McCrae now say traits are
not immutable but fairly stable.
– Martin et al. (2003) found equivalent results.
However, in the very old, suspiciousness and
sensitivity increased.
Costa & McCrae Article (2006)
• Cross-cultural evidence does suggest
modest decreases in neuroticism,
extraversion, and openness, and increases
in agreeableness and conscientiousness as
people age (Terracciano et al., 2005)
• Openness increases in young adulthood
then decreases.
• Changes are more pronounced in early
adulthood.
• Similar developmental patterns across
sexes.
Terracciano, McCrae, Brant, & Costa (2005). Hierarchical Linear Modeling Analyses of the NEOPI-R Scales in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Psychology and Aging, 20 (3), 493-506.
Terracciano, McCrae, Brant, & Costa (2005). Hierarchical Linear Modeling Analyses of the NEOPI-R Scales in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Psychology and Aging, 20 (3), 493-506.
Terracciano, McCrae, Brant, & Costa (2005). Hierarchical Linear Modeling Analyses of the NEOPI-R Scales in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Psychology and Aging, 20 (3), 493-506.
Terracciano, McCrae, Brant, & Costa (2005). Hierarchical Linear Modeling Analyses of the NEOPI-R Scales in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Psychology and Aging, 20 (3), 493-506.
Terracciano, McCrae, Brant, & Costa (2005). Hierarchical Linear Modeling Analyses of the NEOPI-R Scales in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Psychology and Aging, 20 (3), 493-506.
Costa & McCrae Article (2006)
• Subdivision of extraversion into social
vitality and social dominance.
• Roberts et al. (2006) found increase in
dominance from adolescence to age 40;
McCrae & Costa saw assertiveness decrease
in adults compared to college students
Additional Studies of Dispositional Traits
• Other studies have shown increasing evidence for
personality changes as we grow older.
1. Certain traits, (self-confidence, cognitive
development, outgoingness, and
dependability) show some changes in the 30
to 40 year period
2. Neuroticism may increase according to Small,
but this finding is in opposition to Costa &
McCrae’s.
3. In a large online study (n=130,000),
Srivastasa et al. (2003) found that none of the
Big Five traits remained stable after age 30
The Berkeley Studies
• Participants were followed for 30 years
between ages 40 to 70. Gender differences
were identified
– For women
• Lifestyle in young adulthood was best predictor
of life satisfaction in old age
– For men
• Personality was the better predictor of life
satisfaction in old age
Women’s Personality Development
During Adulthood
• Two categories of women were studied with
the following personality differences
– Those who followed the social clock
• Withdrawal from social live
• Suppression of impulse and spontaneity
• Negative self-image
• Decreased feelings of competence
• 20% were divorced between ages of 28 and 30
Women’s Personality Development During
Adulthood
– Those who did not follow the social clock
• Less respectful of norms and self-assertive
• Not lower on femininity or on well-being
• More independent
• Greater confidence and initiative
• More forceful, less impulsive
• More considerate of others and organized
• More complex and better able to adapt
Critiques of the Five-Factor Model
• Block (1995) takes issue with the methodology that
uses laypeople to specify personality descriptors that
were used to create the terms of the Five-Factor
Model.
• McAdams (1996, 1999) points out that any model of
dispositional traits says nothing about the core or
essential aspects of human nature.
• Stability and change in personality is certainly a
controversial area.
Conclusions about Dispositional
Traits
• The idea that personality traits stop changing
at age 30 seems more and more unlikely.
• It could be that, generally speaking,
personality traits tend to be stable when data
are averaged over large groups of people.
• But looking at specific aspects of personality
in specific kinds of people, there may be less
stability and more change.
What’s Different about Personal
Concerns?
• Personal concerns
– Rely on context unlike dispositional traits
– Are narrative descriptions that rely on life
circumstances
– Change over time
• One “has” personality traits, but “does”
behaviours that are important in everyday
life.
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
• Emphasizes that each aspect of a person’s
personality must be in balance with all the
others.
– e.g.: Introversion-extraversion and
masculinity-femininity
• Jung was the first theorist to discuss
personality development during adulthood.
– He invented the notion of midlife crisis
• People move toward integrating these
dimensions as they age, with midlife being an
especially important period.
Erik Erikson (1902-1994)
• Erikson was the first theorist to develop a true
lifespan theory of personality development.
• His eight stages represent the eight great
struggles that he believed people must undergo.
• Each struggle has a certain time of ascendancy
– The epigenetic principle
– Each struggle must be resolved to continue
development
Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial
Development
Clarifications and Extensions of Erikson’s
Theory
• Logan argues that the eight stages are really a cycle
that repeats
– trust achievement wholeness
• Van Geert proposes that the rules by which people
move from one stage to the next may be related to
cognitive development.
• Kotre has extended generativity versus stagnation
stage to include five types of generativity
– Biological and parental
– Technical
– Cultural
– Agentic
– Communal
The McAdams Model
• McAdams’s model shows how generativity
results from:
– Complex interconnections between societal
and inner forces
– Thus, creating a concern for the next
generation and a belief in the goodness of
the human enterprise
Loevinger’s Theory
• Loevinger has proposed the most comprehensive
attempt at integrating cognitive and ego
development and extension of Erikson’s theory
– Ego development results from dynamic
interactions between the person and the
environment
– Eight stages – six in adulthood
– Four areas of importance in ego development
1.Character development
2.Interpersonal style
3.Conscious preoccupations
4.Cognitive style
Theories Based on Life Transitions
• Amongst the most popular theories of adult
personality development.
• Based on the idea that adults go through a
series of life transitions, or passages
– However, few of these theories have substantial
databases, and none are based on
representative samples.
• Life transitions tend to overestimate the
commonality of age-linked transitions.
In Search of the Midlife Crisis
• A key idea in life transition theories is the
midlife crisis.
– The idea that at middle age we take a good
look at ourselves in the hopes of achieving a
better understanding of who we are.
• Many adults face difficult issues and make
behavioural changes
In Search of the Midlife Crisis
• However, very little data supports the claim that all
people inevitably experience a crisis in middle age.
– Most middle-aged people do point to both gains
and losses, positives and negatives in their lives
• This transition may be better characterized as a
midlife correction.
– Reevaluating ones’ roles and dreams and making
the necessary corrections
Conclusions about Personal Concerns
• Evidence supports a sharp change in personal
concerns as adults age.
– This is in contrast to stability in dispositional traits
supporting McAdams’s contention that this
middle level of personality should show some
change.
• Change is not specific to an age, but is dependent on
many factors.
• All agree that there is a need for more research in
this area.
McAdams’s Life-Story Model
• Argues that people create a life story
– That is, an internalized narrative with a
beginning, middle, and an anticipated ending
• There are seven essential features of a life story
– Narrative tone
– Image
– Theme
– Ideological setting
– Nuclear episodes
– Character
– An ending
McAdams’s Life-Story Model
• Adults are said to reformulate their life
stories throughout adulthood both at the
conscious and unconscious levels
– The goal is to have a life story that is
• Coherent
• Credible
• Open to new possibilities
• Richly differentiated
• Reconciling of opposite aspects of oneself
• Integrated within one’s sociocultural context
Whitbourne's Identity Theory
• Argues that people build conceptions of how
their lives should proceed
• They create a unified sense of their past,
present, and future
– The life-span construct, which has 2 parts
– A scenario
• This includes future expectations or a game plan
for one’s life; it is strongly related to age norms.
– A life story
• A personal narrative history that organizes past
events into a coherent sequence.
Self-Concept
• The organized, coherent, integrated pattern of
self-perceptions that includes self-esteem and
self-image.
– Mortimer and colleagues
• A 14-year longitudinal study showed that selfconcept influences the interpretation of life events
• Kegen
– Self-concepts across adulthood are related to
the cognitive-developmental level.
– Proposes six stages of development which
correspond to levels of cognitive development.
– Emphasizes that self-concept and personality
does not occur in a vacuum.
Possible Selves
• Created by projecting yourself into the future and
thinking about what you would like to become,
and what you are afraid of becoming.
• Age differences have been observed in both
hoped-for and feared selves.
– Young adults and middle-aged adults report
family issues as most important.
– Middle-aged and older adults report personal
issues to be most important.
• However, all groups included physical aspects as part
of their most feared selves.
– Interestingly, young and middle-aged adults see
themselves as improving in the future, while
older adults do not.
Possible Selves
• Ryff identified six aspects of psychological
well-being:
– Self-acceptance
– Positive relationships with others
– Autonomy
– Environmental mastery
– Purpose in life
– Personal growth
Religiosity and Spiritual Support
• Older adults use religion more often than any other
strategy to help them cope with problems in life
– Spiritual support includes
• Pastoral care
• Participating in organized and non-organized religious
activities
• Expressing faith in a God who cares for people
• Spiritual support provides a strong influence on
identity
– This is especially true for African Americans, who
are more active in their church groups and attend
services more frequently
– Research with Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus
showed they also gain important aspects of their
identity (e.g., self-worth) from religion.
Gender-Role Identity
• People’s beliefs about the appropriate
characteristics for men and women
– They reflect shared cultural beliefs and
stereotypes about masculinity and femininity
• There is some evidence that gender role identity
converges in middle age
– Men and women more likely to endorse similar
self-descriptions
• However, these similar descriptions do not
necessarily translate into similar behavior
• Also, older men and women tend to endorse similar
statements about masculinity and femininity