The Detrimental Impacts of Negative Age Stereotype on Episodic Memory of Older Adults: Does Social Participation Moderate the Effects?

Abstract Background: Memory performances were shown to be negatively affected by negative age stereotype primes among older adults. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of negative age stereotype primes on episodic memory using implicit priming intervention and further investigate whether social participation moderate the effects. Methods: A total of 105 community-dwelling older adults residing in Hong Kong were randomly allocated to two experimental conditions. Participants were primed either with negative age stereotypes (n = 53) or neutral words (n = 52) by implicit priming intervention which was framed as reaction task prior to the episodic memory tasks. Other measures such as demographic variables and social participation rate were collected by questionnaire during the delayed recall interval. Results: Results indicated that experimental group performed significantly worse than the control group among all measures in the memory performances. Follow-up analyses showed that social participation moderated the effects of negative age stereotypes in the recognition task. Conclusions: Using a simple scale to measure social participation, we found there was a significant moderating effect of social participation on the effects of negative age stereotype primes on episodic memory, these results provide initial support for social participation might act as an effective strategy against negative age stereotypes. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04202120 (first posted December 17, 2019), (Retrospectively registered) Keywords: Age stereotypes, episodic memory, older adults, social participation