Visual Abilities in Older Adults Explain Age-Differences in Stroop and Fluid Intelligence but Not Face Recognition: Implications for the Vision-Cognition Connection

The associations among age, visual abilities and cognitive abilities were investigated using structural equation modeling. Measures of Visual Acuity, Colour Vision, Contrast Sensitivity, Stroop, Face Recognition and Fluid intelligence (Gf) were administered to a volunteer sample (n = 90) aged 60-87. Visual Acuity was associated with Gf even after controlling for chronological age. Age differences in Stroop were explained entirely by Colour Vision performance. However, neither Visual Acuity nor Colour Vision explained age-differences in Face Recognition. The results show that performance on some neuropsychological tests is influenced by visual ability and challenge the conventional identification of ageing effects on the Stroop task with deficits in frontal executive functioning. Visual abilities do not, however, contribute to age-differences in all cognitive domains suggesting that sensory and cognitive performance declines are not necessarily due to common biological ageing processes.     

Is music a memory booster in normal aging? The influence of emotion

Age-related differences in episodic memory have been explained by a decrement in strategic encoding implementation. It has been shown in clinical populations that music can be used during the encoding stage as a mnemonic strategy to learn verbal information. The effectiveness of this strategy remains equivocal in older adults (OA). Furthermore, the impact of the emotional valence of the music used has never been investigated in this context. Thirty OA and 24 young adults (YA) learned texts that were either set to music that was positively or negatively valenced, or spoken only. Immediate and delayed recalls were measured. Results showed that: (i) OA perform worse than YA in immediate and delayed recall; (ii) sung lyrics are better remembered than spoken ones in OA, but only when the associated music is positively-valenced; (iii) this pattern is observed regardless the retention delay. These findings support the benefit of a musical encoding on verbal learning in healthy OA and are consistent with the positivity effect classically reported in normal aging. Added to the potential applications in daily life, the results are discussed with respect to the theoretical hypotheses of the mechanisms underlying the advantage of musical encoding.     

Motives to (not) forgive deviant group members: A comparison within and between cultures

This study examines people's motives to (not) forgive group members who violate an important group norm. More specifically, we attempt to determine what is the primary focus in such a situation (the group, the offender, the relationship, or the self), and whether this depends on how important the group is and on the cultural context (more individualist or more collectivist). Our sample includes Moluccans living in Indonesia (more collectivist) and Moluccans in the Netherlands (more individualist). Participants were asked to evaluate a scenario in which a group member (close or nonclose other) violated an important group norm. We find that Indonesian Moluccans are more likely not to forgive group members who violate a group norm than Dutch Moluccans. This finding suggests that the group is more important to Indonesian Moluccans. Across the two samples, however, participants were more inclined to forgive an ingroup deviant for the benefit of this person or their relationship than for the benefit of the group. Interestingly, self‐focused concerns were more important among Indonesian Moluccans and differences between the samples in the relative importance of the different motives could not be explained by people's self‐definition (i.e., more independent or interdependent). Implications of these findings for the literature on forgiveness and on individualism–collectivism are discussed.     

Cross‐cultural similarities and differences in motives to forgive: A comparison between and within cultures

Recently, researchers have begun to explore people's motives to forgive those who have offended them. Using a recall method, we examined whether such motives (relationship‐, offender‐ or self‐focused) differ between and within cultures that are more collectivistic (Moluccan Islands in Indonesia) or more individualistic (the Netherlands) and whether this depends on people's relationship with the offender. More specifically, we examined the idea that other‐focused motives should be more important in cultures that are more collectivistic and that self‐focused motives should prevail in more individualistic cultures. We found that Moluccan participants indeed endorsed relationship‐ and offender‐focused motives more than Dutch participants. Moluccan and Dutch participants did not, however, differ in the extent to which they endorsed self‐focused motives. Furthermore, Dutch participants were more likely to endorse relationship motives (especially in close relations) than self‐focused motives. For Moluccan participants, relationship‐, offender‐ and self‐focused motives were equally important and also did not depend on how close they were with the offender. Differences between the samples could not be explained by the extent to which people defined themselves as more independent or interdependent. The implications of these findings for future research on forgiveness motives are discussed.     

Personality Predicts Health Declines Through Stressful Life Events During Late Mid‐Life

Personality predicts the occurrence of dependent stressful life events (SLE; i.e., events reliant, at least in part, on an individual's behavior). This process, termed stress generation, contributes to psychiatric outcomes, but its role in physical health is unknown. Data were included from 998 participants (aged 55–64) in the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN) study. Assessments occurred every 6 months for 18 months. Neuroticism, impulsivity, and agreeableness were measured with the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Dependent (e.g., divorce) and independent (e.g., family death) SLE occurring within 6 months following baseline were assessed with the List of Threatening Experiences and confirmed by interviews. Health problems occurring within a year after SLE were the outcome. Analyses examined whether neuroticism, impulsivity, and agreeableness indirectly predict the onset of new health problems through exposure to dependent SLE. Each personality trait was associated with dependent, but not independent, SLE. Only dependent SLE predicted new health problems. Each personality trait indirectly predicted the onset of new health problems through dependent SLE. Findings suggest that personality‐driven stress generation influences physical health during late mid‐life. Addressing personality in interventions may reduce the occurrence of SLE, in turn decreasing health risks.     

Motivation modulates the effect of approach on implicit preferences

With three studies, we investigated whether motivational states can modulate the formation of implicit preferences. In Study 1, participants played a video game in which they repeatedly approached one of two similar beverages, while disregarding the other. A subsequent implicit preference for the target beverage emerged, which increased with participants’ thirst. In Study 2, participants approached one brand of potato chips while avoiding the other: Conceptually replicating the moderation observed in Study 1, the implicit preference for the approached brand increased with the number of hours from last food intake. In Study 3, we experimentally manipulated hunger, and the moderation effect emerged again, with hungry participants displaying a higher implicit preference for the approached brand, as compared to satiated participants. In the three studies, the moderation effect was not paralleled in explicit preferences although the latter were affected by the preference inducing manipulation. Theoretical implications and open questions are discussed.     

The moderator role of intuitive versus deliberative decision making for the predictive validity of implicit and explicit measures

The Preference for Intuition and Deliberation (PID) scale aims at capturing stable general individual differences in terms of intuitive versus deliberative preferences in decision making. A study examined the psychometric properties of the English version of the PID, investigated whether the two subscales moderate the validity of implicit and explicit measures for incidental and deliberative evaluations and behaviours concerning fizzy soft drinks, and compared the predictive validity of two new implicit measures (ST‐IAT and ID‐EAST) and an explicit measure. Results showed an asymmetric weak double dissociation pattern only for behaviours. Additionally, a moderation effect suggested that the ST‐IAT better predicted sensory evaluation for people high in intuition and explicit attitudes better predicted benefit evaluation for people high in deliberation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding the Complexity of Everyday Interethnic Contact: Recommendations for Researchers

Interethnic contact has long been a focus of social psychological research, and in this article, we provide some recommendations about how to study interethnic social contact. Our primary recommendation is that researchers should study interethnic contact more in vivo to complement single assessment surveys and laboratory research, sometimes of arbitrarily defined groups, with more naturalistic research and with research involving groups that exist in the real world. This recommendation is based in part on the limitations of surveys and laboratory methods and in part on the advantages provided by what are referred to as intensive repeated measures designs, methods that have proven to be useful in studying other topics. We discuss these limitations and the relative advantages of different types of intensive repeated measures methods for the study of interethnic contact and provide some recommendations for their use. Finally, regardless of how they study interethnic contact, researchers need to expand the focus of their questions, increase the sensitivity of the data they collect, and increase the ethnic diversity of the samples they study.