Researchers recruited 97 young adults between 18 and 28 years of age and 94 older adults whose ages ranged between 59-80 years. Participants in the study viewed film clips designed to induce them into either a positive, negative or neutral mood. Once they completed a test that measured their mood, they were given a test to measure their attention to detail and working memory capacity. Finally, they were given an essay and asked to assess whether they thought the opinions in the essay were forced or the result of the writer's own choosing.
When in a negative mood, older adults were more likely than younger adults to assume that the actions of the essay writer reflected a true belief, despite the fact that the writer had no choice in which belief to advocate.
"We thought that this was because the older adults were not focusing on the essay, not focusing on the instructions," said Andy Mienaltowski, graduate researcher and lead author of the study. "Instead, they were focusing on their negative mood state, their emotional state that they had been put in before they read the essay."
These findings seem to support other research suggesting that as people age, they become more interested in regulating their emotions and eliminating negativity.
"Older adults may be captured by the negativity and, therefore, focus attention on emotion regulation," said Blanchard-Fields. "Therefore, they focus attention on emotion regulation rather than focusing attention on the details that they need to internalize. So it's a dual task for them."
When positive moods were induced, the roles were reversed. This time, the younger adults were more likely to be less focused and exhibit the correspondence bias, and the older adults were detail oriented and considered other factors when explaining th
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Contact: David Terraso
d.terraso@gatech.edu
404-385-2966
Georgia Institute of Technology
15-Mar-2006