You'll change more than I will: Adults’ predictions about their own and others’ future preferences

It has been argued that adults underestimate the extent to which their preferences will change over time. We sought to determine whether such mispredictions are the result of a difficulty imagining that one's own current and future preferences may differ or whether it also characterizes our predictions about the future preferences of others. We used a perspective-taking task in which we asked young people how much they liked stereotypically young-person items (e.g., Top 40 music, adventure vacations) and stereotypically old-person items (e.g., jazz, playing bridge) now, and how much they would like them in the distant future (i.e., when they are 70 years old). Participants also made these same predictions for a generic same-age, same-sex peer. In a third condition, participants predicted how much a generic older (i.e., age 70) same-sex adult would like items from both categories today. Participants predicted less change between their own current and future preferences than between the current and future preferences of a peer. However, participants estimated that, compared to a current older adult today, their peer would like stereotypically young items more in the future and stereotypically old items less. The fact that peers’ distant-future estimated preferences were different from the ones they made for “current” older adults suggests that even though underestimation of change of preferences over time is attenuated when thinking about others, a bias still exists.     

Attitudes of learner drivers toward safety at level crossings: Do they change after a 360° video-based educational intervention?

In light of the growing number of level crossing accidents and the limited prevention programmes, this study examined relationships among attitudes toward traffic rules, impulsiveness, and behavioural intentions at level crossings. It explored the behavioural effects of an educational programme newly developed within the framework of the Croatian national safety project “Implementation of measures to improve the safety of the most vulnerable traffic participants at level crossings“. The programme aimed to change risky attitudes and behavioural intentions of learner drivers at level crossings. It consists of a safety lecture accompanied by pictures, videos and the exposition to a 3D virtual reality film shot at a real level crossing, which allows the participant to experience, from the driver’s perspective, safe and risky crossings. The programme was implemented in 11 driving schools. First, 285 participants (62.8% men) answered a questionnaire measuring safety attitudes toward traffic and impulsiveness, then they attended a lecture and participated in the virtual reality experience. Finally, they answered a questionnaire measuring planned future behaviour at level crossings. The results showed that attitudes toward level crossing risk significantly predicted intended driving behaviour at level crossings. Furthermore, the 360° video-based educational intervention altered the relationships connecting attitudes toward level crossings and risky driving behaviour at level crossings. The practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Influence of values,attitudes towards transport modes and companions on travel behavior

The design and implementation of transport policies to promote active transport requires a deep comprehension of the factors that influence travel behavior. In this context, psychological factors and social interactions play an important role in explaining travel-related decisions. Even though, the importance of psychosocial variables in travel behavior research has been widely recognized during recent years, there is a lack of understanding of how these factors interact. This paper aims to better understand the interrelationships between values, attitudes towards transport modes and a subset of the social network composed by habitual trips and activities companions. For this purpose, a theoretical framework is proposed which posits all the possible relationships among these factors. In order to test this conceptual framework, two Structural Equation Models are estimated considering attitudes towards active transport (bike and walking), using a dataset from a web-based survey developed for the MINERVA project in Valencia (Spain). The data is composed by 404 respondents who provided valid information regarding all the variables of the study. Results confirm the hierarchical value-attitude-behavior structure while several effects are also found directly between values and attitudes. For instance, individuals who attach more importance to Stimulation and Achievement values are higher active transport user, while values traditionally associated with car use are no longer maintaining this relation. Besides that, positive attitudes towards walking and cycling are strongly associated with a higher use of active transport, and also seem to discourage the use of motorized modes. Several characteristics of companions affects personal values and active travel and less influence is found on attitudes. These findings are useful to develop transport policies and campaigns to promote sustainable transport, such as the design of strategies in the context of Travel Behavior Change Programs. Limitations of this research include several aspects related to online surveys, for instance, sample size and underrepresentation of individuals over 55 years.     

Aging, Memory, and Comprehension

There are changes in the ability to comprehend and remember information with aging. In general, older adults perform more poorly than younger adults at tasks that require knowledge of the information that was actually encountered. However, they can perform as well as or better than younger adults at tasks involving more global levels of understanding, such as in the use ofinformation in a situation model. This increased emphasis on situation models may serve to compensate for deficits at lower levels of processing and may be achieved through more focused selection of situation-defining information, increased dependence on schemas, and a broader generation and use of inferences.     

Attitudes as stable and transparent constructions

In three studies we examined the assumption that attitudes can be based on a stable structure of individually important attributes. In the first study we examined if people are able to adequately determine what the attributes are that underlie their attitude by relating meta-attitudinal measures to more operative measures of attribute importance. The results of the operative measures corroborate the subjective ratings of importance. In the second study we examined the associative strength between the individually important attributes and the attitude object. Results indicate that priming participants with individually important attributes leads to facilitation of the overall attitudinal response, as opposed to priming them with less important attributes. This suggests a bottom-up process underlying attitude judgment. The third study shows that attitude strength can play a moderating role in this respect. Implications for research on attitude structure are discussed.     

Values-based Political Messages and Persuasion: Relationships among Speaker, Recipient, and Evoked Values

The persuasive power of values-based political messages may depend on recipients having (1) shared values with the speaker (a type of personal identity match ); (2) shared political party identifications with the speaker (a type of social identity match ); and/or (3) expectations about values traditionally associated with different political parties (an expectancy violation/confirmation ). The independent and joint effects of these factors on the success of a persuasive message were examined, using the theoretical framework of dual-process models of persuasion. Participants (N = 301), classified according to their party identifications and primary value orientations, read a political speech that varied by argument quality, speaker party, and values evoked. Results indicated that value matching promotes close attention to the message, while party mismatching increases message rejection. These effects depend to some extent, however, on expectancies about values traditionally associated with different parties. Participants especially rejected messages from rival party members when the speaker evoked unexpected values. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the efficacy of values-based political communication.     

Strategy combination during execution of memory strategies in young and older adults

The present study investigated whether people can combine two memory strategies to encode pairs of words more efficiently than with a single strategy, and age-related differences in such strategy combination. Young and older adults were asked to encode pairs of words (e.g., satellite-tunnel). For each item, participants were told to use either the interactive-imagery strategy (e.g., mentally visualising the two words and making them interact), the sentence-generation strategy (i.e., generate a sentence linking the two words), or with strategy combination (i.e., generating a sentence while mentally visualising it). Participants obtained better recall performance on items encoded with strategy combination than on items encoded with interactive-imagery or sentence-generation strategies. Moreover, we found age-related decline in such strategy combination. These findings have important implications to further our understanding of execution of memory strategies, and suggest that strategy combination occurs in a variety of cognitive domains.     

Dream content of Canadian males from adolescence to old age: An exploration of ontogenetic patterns

The present study was a first look at the ontogenetic pattern of dream content across the lifespan for men. The participants included 50 Canadian men in each of 5 age groups, from adolescence to old age including 12–17, 18–24, 25–39, 40–64, and 65–85. The last age group included 31 participants, totaling 231 males. One dream per participant was scored by two independent judges using content analysis. Trend analysis was used to determine the lifespan-developmental pattern of the dream content categories. Results demonstrated a predominance of aggressive dream imagery in the adolescent age group in line with social-developmental research. These patterns of dream imagery reflect the waking developmental patterns as proposed by social theories and recognized features of aging. Limitations and suggestions for future research, including the examining of the developmental pattern of gender differences across the lifespan, are discussed.     

Age-related cognitive decline as a function of daytime testing

The current study investigates the effects of age, cognitive load, optimal time-of-day testing, and irrelevant background noise suppression on mental processing. One hundred and seventy-eight young (M = 22.97 years) and 114 old adults (M = 56.38 years) were assessed for implicit learning and speed of information processing under irrelevant sound interference early during daytime (7AM–2.30PM) or in the afternoons (3PM–midnight). No direct effect of irrelevant speech effect was found on implicit learning. An optimal time of testing per age group was identified according to the ability to suppress irrelevant auditory information. If no semantic meaning was derived from the sound conditions, irrelevant sound was easily inhibited leaving no room for declined cognitive performance. This suggests an intact phonological inhibition in older adults and a further circumvention of the phonological loop. However, when difficulty was increased, a widened performance gap between young and old people could be observed. Education modulated difficult performance irrespective of age. With increasing age, task demand fulfillment becomes a function of a limited time mechanism. If extraneous time is not adapted to cognitive skills and performance, higher order processing cannot be reached, rendering older adults slower than their younger counterparts.