Predicting Cautious Behavior in Young and Older Adults with Implicit Age Stereotypes

Background: Previous studies found only negligibly small effects of implicit age stereotypes on behavior which may due to the unspecified relational information between age category and stereotypical traits and the absence of relevant contextual information that is necessary to activate age stereotypes. Objectives and Research questions: Using propositional evaluation paradigm (PEP), we aim to assess implicit age stereotypical beliefs in relevant contexts and to investigate the prediction of cautious-related age stereotypes on young and older adults’ cautious behavior. Participants: We plan to recruit 90 young and 90 older adults. Study method: In the PEP task, a target “true” or “false” appears after an age stereotypical statement (e.g., when driving a car, young people are reckless) and participants are asked to categorize the target. After that, participants are asked to evaluate the age stereotypical statements explicitly. The parameter a of diffusion model analysis and the self-reported cautiousness will be used as indirect and direct criterion of cautious behavior.