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Worrying for age-related memory loss turns it worse |
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According to a new study, people who often think their memory will deteriorate with age actually become more forgetful later in life.
The scientists at North Carolina State University have conducted the study. They have warned people who are in the habit of thinking that their memory will fail with increasing age are actually more likely to go through memory loss than those who never think about having a diminished memory.
The research team included U.S. psychologists Thomas M. Hess, Joey T. Hinson, and Elizabeth A. Hodges, all from the Department of Psychology at North Carolina State University. They found that seniors who were convinced that their memory will diminish with age scored lower in memory tests than those who never asked themselves this kind of questions.
The research team also established that older adults who do not believe in the negative stereotypes about ageing and memory did better on memory-related tasks than their peers.
Dr Hess elaborated, "Older people will perform more poorly on a memory test if they are told that older folks do poorly on that particular type of memory test."
Hess and his team tested memory performance of adults 60 to 70 years old (young-old group) and others who were 71 to 82-year-old (old-old group). They found that people in young-old group were most likely to do more poorly when the stereotypes were activated, as opposed to those in the old-old group.
Apart from thinking of negative stereotypes of aging and memory, seniors who thought they were stigmatised, as in looked down on, because of their age, performed much more poorly than others.
Hess added, "Such situations may be part of older adults` everyday experience, such as being concerned about what others think of them at work having a negative effect on their performance and thus potentially reinforcing the negative stereotypes."
The study also revealed that the negative effects were strongest for those senior people who were highly educated. Hess further added, "We interpret this as being consistent with the idea that those who value their ability to remember things most are the most likely to be sensitive to the negative implications of stereotypes, and thus are most likely to exhibit the problems associated with the stereotype."
In contrast, during the experiment, the researchers found that performance scores on standard memory tests were higher for those who have a more positive view of aging their memory.
Hess stated, "The positive flip side of this is that those who do not feel stigmatized, or those in situations where more positive views of aging are activated, exhibit significantly higher levels of memory performance. The take-home message is that social factors may have a negative effect on older adults` memory performance."
(Posted on : 25/04/2009)
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| Worrying for age-related memory loss turns it worse |
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