人的老化与社会情绪选择理论

当今世界人口老龄化带来的诸多影响日益受到人们的关注与重视,老化研究也逐渐成为心理学家关注的热点。社会情绪选择理论是基于老化问题而提出的一个新理论。总结这一理论的基本假设和理论框架,并对目前有关此理论的实证研究进行了整理概括,最后指出了该领域尚存在的一些问题,并对未来前景进行了展望。     

注意与记忆中的“积极效应” ——“老化悖论”与社会情绪选择理论的视角

老年人在注意和记忆活动中存在着“积极效应”现象,即对积极材料的加工维持得较好,表现出对积极信息的偏向。社会情绪选择理论从时间的认知评估影响情绪目标的选择来解释这一现象。同时,研究发现信息的加工方式与“积极效应”有密切关联,当控制加工时,“积极效应”出现;而自动加工时,“积极效应”消失。“积极效应”受到时间认知的控制,也受到认知资源和认知能力的限制。目前,随着认知神经科学的发展,利用先进设备与仪器研究老年人认知活动中的“积极效应”有着广阔的前景     

社会情绪选择理论概述

个体对未来时间的感知会影响其社会动机、社会目标追求、情绪管理以及认知过程, 研究者对此提出了社会情绪选择理论, 认为对未来生命中所剩时间的感知是个体动机的组成部分, 影响着社会目标的优先性选择。当知觉到未来时间非常有限时, 优先选择以情绪调节为目标; 反之, 则偏向选择以获取知识为目标。社会情绪选择理论概述介绍了相关的基本假设和理论要点, 对其主要研究领域进行述评, 并指出未来研究中值得注意的几个方面。     

An Intersubjective Perspective on Social Cognition and Aging

This article offers an intersubjective perspective on the topic of social cognition and aging. We begin by outlining the essential differences between an intersubjective perspective and the more traditional subjectivist perspective, as developed in earlier articles by Ickes and Gonzalez (1994, 1996). We then suggest how 2 intersubjectivist approaches-Schutz's (1970) perspective on phenomenology and social relations and Wegner, Giuliano, and Hertel's (1985) perspective on cognitive interdependence-might be applied to the study of social cognition and aging. For each of these intersubjectivist approaches, we propose both general avenues for research and a number of more specific hypotheses.     

Emotional Expression During Autobiographical Narratives as a Function of Aging: Support for the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

People communicate personal stories in very different ways. These variations in communication patterns may be affected by many variables, particularly age. Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) predicts young adults are focused on information gathering to function in society, whereas older adults become increasingly motivated to regulate emotions and pursue emotionally salient yet stable goals and activities. What is not understood is whether communication patterns reflect this developmental transition. Younger and older adults (n = 120) completed negative and positive autobiographical narratives that were analyzed with a Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program. Results indicated that younger adults utilized more affective words in general, including more positive, negative, and anxious words during autobiographical narratives. In the positive autobiographical task, older adults used a higher percentage of “family” words, whereas in the negative autobiographical task, younger adults more frequently utilized “friend” words. In terms of pronoun use, there was evidence for increased second and third person pronouns among older adults. Results related to affective, social, and pronoun word use are largely supportive of SST. However, other important findings that were not predicted were noteworthy, including the finding that results varied as a function of narrative valence.     

The Continuity Perspective of Aging and Retirement Applied to Protestant Clergy: An Analysis of Theory

ABSTRACT

This paper has examined some of the conceptual and operational issues of the continuity perspective, which is considered as more appropriate than others reviewed for the study of clergy retirement. As a solution to the dilemma of the inevitable changes associated with old age and the notion of continuity, the use of the sociological concept of “career” was suggested. With this concept as a guide, four components – situational/environmental factors, activity, psychological continuity, and occupational subculture – of a continuity perspective have been outlined.     

解析成功老龄化的新角度——毕生控制理论

本文介绍了成功老龄化研究领域中Heckhausen朗等人提出的毕生控制理论以及初级控制和次级控制的最优化模型.该模型综合了Baltes的带有补偿的选择性最优化模型以及Rothbaum的控制理论.文中对其进行了简单的评述及研究展望.     

A Positive Perspective on Attentional Bias: Positive Affectivity and Attentional Bias to Positive Information

In recent years there has been growing interest in determining the attentional basis of positive affectivity. Investigators have sought to evaluate the hypothesis that elevated positive affectivity is characterized by an attentional bias that favours the processing of positive information over neutral information. Unfortunately, in the studies carried out to date, the assessment procedures used by researchers to assess such attentional selectivity have either been methodologically limited or methodologically flawed. Hence, the validity of the hypothesis has remained indeterminate. To overcome the problems associated with attentional assessment procedures used in previous studies, and so shed light on the attentional basis of positive affectivity, we employed an appropriate variant of the attentional probe task. Our findings show that participants high in positive affectivity displayed greater relative attention to positive information compared to neutral information, than was the case for their low positive affectivity counterparts. Thus, the present results support the hypothesis that an attentional bias to positive information, relative to neutral information, is characteristic of elevated positive affectivity.     

Learner-Centered Counseling Theory: An Innovative Perspective

One of the most useful tools counselors possess is a consistent, effective theoretical orientation. Yet, counselors often experience theory as an academic-only enterprise, rather than a skill-set informed by reason and empiricism. This article presents an alternative approach to learning and harnessing the power of theory to impact clients’ lives.     

Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective

This article presents the basic tenets of social cognitive theory. It is founded on a causal model of triadic reciprocal causation in which personal factors in the form of cognitive, affective and biological events, behavioral patterns, and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants that influence one another bidirectionally. Within this theory, human agency is embedded in a self theory encompassing self-organizing, proactive, self-reflective and self-regulative mechanisms. Human agency can be exercised through direct personal agency; through proxy agency relying on the efforts of intermediaries; and by collective agency operating through shared beliefs of efficacy, pooled understandings, group aspirations and incentive systems, and collective action. Personal agency operates within a broad network of sociostructural influences. In these agentic transactions, people are producers as well as products of social systems. Growing transnational imbeddedness and interdependence of societies are creating new social realities in which global forces increasingly interact with national ones to shape the nature of cultural life.     

Successful Aging: Focus on Public Policy and Spiritual Well-Being

ABSTRACT

This article considers the importance of religious values for effective public policy on aging in the United States. An examination of the concepts of successful aging and spiritual well-being introduces a discussion of the necessary relationship between the two. Nine values from the Christian tradition that can serve as helpful guides for policymakers are outlined, followed by a look at relevant teachings of several of the world's religions that are becoming more important in the United States as the numbers of their followers grow. The article concludes with a discussion of the role religious values can play in making policy that will promote successful aging.     

Theory in Religion,Aging, and Health: An Overview

This paper provides an overview of theory in religion, aging, and health. It offers both a primer on theory and a roadmap for researchers. Four “tenses” of theory are described—distinct ways that theory comes into play in this field: grand theory, mid-range theory, use of theoretical models, and positing of constructs which mediate or moderate putative religious effects. Examples are given of both explicit and implicit uses of theory. Sources of theory for this field are then identified, emphasizing perspectives of sociologists and psychologists, and discussion is given to limitations of theory. Finally, reflections are offered as to why theory matters.     

Evidence for Distinct Attentional Bottlenecks in Attention Switching and Attentional Blink Tasks

E. Weichselgartner and G. A. Sperling (1987), using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), estimated that attention could be moved to a new spatial location within 300-400 ms. H. J. Müller and P. M. Rabbit (1989) used a spatial cuing task and found a similar time course for voluntarily redeploying attention. A separate phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB) also follows a similar time course, yet occurs when participants attend to a single spatial location. The present study found that attention can be shifted more quickly than previously estimated and that part of the deficit observed during searches of spatially distinct RSVP streams is due to an AB. The results support some early and late selection accounts for the temporal dynamics of visual attention and suggest different bottlenecks during visual selection. The implications for visual search and visual processing are discussed.     

Attentional requirements of learning: Evidence from performance measures

Important differences have emerged between introspective measures of learning, such as recall and recognition, and performance measures, in which the performance of a task is facilitated by prior experience. Introspective remembering of unattended stimuli is poor. We investigated whether performance measures would also show a strong dependence on attention. Subjects performed a serial reaction time task comprised of a repeating 10-trial stimulus sequence. When this task was given under dual-task conditions, acquisition of the sequence as assessed by verbal reports and performance measures was minimal. Patients with Korsakoff's syndrome learned the sequence despite their lack of awareness of the repeating pattern. Results are discussed in terms of the attentional requirements of learning, the relation between learning and awareness, preserved learning in amnesia, and the separation of memory systems.     

Women and Aging: A Futurist Perspective

Many of the inequities characteristic of the female position tend to crystallize in older age. Under the assumed continuation of trends involving family life, reproductive freedom, sexuality and labor force participation, aging women of the future may find improvement with respect to personal status and socioemotional rewards. However, incipient counter trends, made strong by religious conservatism, must be noted. Should such counter trends gain in strength, the lot of aging women of the future may be but a version of the status quo ante .     

A Social Learning Perspective on Sales Technology Usage: Preliminary Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Drawing on social learning theory, we examine how the perceived technological savvy of a salesperson’s manager, coworkers, and competitors affects sales technology usage behavior. Data were drawn from a major retail bank in Nigeria, Africa. Analyses of data from relationship managers confirm predictions that while perceived coworker savvy directly influences technology usage, the influence of managers’ and competitors’ perceived savvy is mediated. Perceived manager savvy influences usage by increasing feelings of monitoring and the level of perceived coworker savvy. Similarly, perceived competitor savvy influences usage by increasing perceived manager and coworker savvy. We also confirm that usage of sales technology has a positive influence on salesperson performance.     

Socioemotional selectivity in older adults: Evidence from the subjective experience of angry memories

Few studies have compared the phenomenological properties of younger and older adults' memories for emotional events. Some studies suggest that younger adults remember negative information more vividly than positive information whereas other studies suggest that positive emotion yields phenomenologically richer memories than negative emotion for both younger and older adults. One problem with previous studies is a tendency to treat emotion as a dichotomous variable. In contrast, emotional richness demands inclusion of assessments beyond just a positive and negative dimension (e.g., assessing specific emotions like anger, fear and happiness). The present study investigated different properties of autobiographical remembering as a function of discrete emotions and age. Thirty-two younger and thirty-one older adults participated by recalling recent and remote memories associated with six emotional categories and completed the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire for each. Results demonstrated that older adults' angry memories received lower ratings on some phenomenological properties than other emotional memories whereas younger adults' angry memories did not show this same pattern. These results are discussed within the context of socioemotional selectivity theory.     

Aging and Remote Memory Declines: Preliminary Findings

Relatively little research has examined the effect of aging upon remote memory, especially among individuals who have entered their 10th decade of life. The present study examined whether remote memory deteriorates in a group of 132 neurologically normal men and women ranging in age from 50 to 97. Remote memory was measured with a modification of the Presidents Test. The data revealed that higher levels of education corresponded with better remote memory. Additionally, age-related differences in memory occurred only in men, with those aged 90 years and older showing significantly worse remote memory than other age groups. Potential explanations and implications of these data are delineated.