1. IntroductionMethodResultsConclusions AGE RELATED STIGMA Decrements in the self-control in older adults has been attributed to normal age related declines in executive functioning. SELF CONTROL & EGO-DEPLETION  Participants who have previously exerted self-control on a task are less likely to successfully exercise control on subsequent tasks.  Performing poorly on a measure of self- control due to a previous act requiring self-control is called ego-depletion.  Coping with stigma requires self- regulation.  When aware of their stigmatized identity, stigmatized individuals are less able to control their behavior. HYPOTHESES  Older adults who are presented with negative articles about aging will show more signs of ego-depletion than participants who are exposed to positive articles about aging.  Older adults who are exposed to positive articles about aging will freely generate more positive age-related stereotype words than participants who are exposed to negative articles about aging  When exposed to negative articles about aging, older adults will generate more negative age-related stereotype words than participants who are exposed to positive articles. The Effects of Age-Related Stigma on Self-Control Mindi Price, Jessica L. Alquist, David W. Hancock, Amelia E. Talley, & Kelly Cukrowicz Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University PARTICIPANTS  102 older adults (62 males, 40 females)  Ages 67-77 (mean age 67.7)  Recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk  MATERIALS  Positive article condition: positive articles describing the maintenance of memory abilities across the lifespan.  Negative article condition: articles describe age-related declines in memory.  Ego-Depletion Measure: temporal delay discounting task -decisions about whether to hypothetically receive a small amount of money immediately or a larger sum at a later date.  Word Completion Measure: 27 prompts such as “S _ O W” which could be completed with an ageism related word such as “slow” or a neutral word such as “stow.” The prompts included both negative and positive age-related words such as “senile” and “warm.” PROCEDURE  Participants read fictional news articles describing the cognitive effects of aging as either positive or negative  Self-control was measured using a temporal discounting task  Accessibility of ageism-related words was measured with a word completion task EGO-DEPLETION  Participants in the negative article condition subsequently chose the smaller, immediate option over the larger delayed option more often than participants in the positive article condition F(1, 102) = 4.89, p =.029. Standard errors are represented in the figure by the error bars attached to each column. WORD COMPLETION  Participants who were in the positive article condition generated more positive stereotype words than participants in the negative article condition F(1, 102) = 4.35, p =.039.  The number of times people filled out age-related words was negatively correlated with delay discounting r(101) = -.20, p <.04.  There was no difference with negative words STIGMA & SELF-CONTROL  The current research extends the finding that being exposed to negative stereotypes about one’s own group leads to worse self-control than being exposed to positive stereotypes for older adults. Future research should test if exposure to positive stereotypes improves performance or exposure to negative stereotypes impairs performance on the temporal discounting task.  Ageism may be a contributor to impaired self-control beyond that which is attributed to typical age-related declines. Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1252–1265. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1252 Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Tice, D. M. (2007). The strength model of self-control. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 351-355. Gibbons, F.X., O'Hara, R.E., Stock, M.L., Gerrard, M., Weng, C.Y., & Wills, T.A. (2012) The erosive effects of racism: reduced self-control mediates the relation between perceived racial discrimination and substance use in African American adolescents. Journal of Personality And Social Psychology, 102, 1089-1104. Hess, T. M., Auman, C., Colcombe, S. J., & Rahhal, T. A. (2003). The impact of stereotype threat on age differences in memory performance. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 58, 3- 11. Kirby, K. N., Petry, N. M., & Bickel, W. K. (1999). Heroin addicts have higher discount rates for delayed rewards than non-drug-using controls. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128, 78-91. von Hippel, W. (2007) Aging, executive functioning, and social control. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 240-244. Inzlicht, M., McKay, L., Aronson, J. (2006). Stigma as Ego Depletion: How being the target of prejudice affects self-control. Psychological Science, 17, 262-269. Mindi Price alquistlab.weebly.com Mindi.Price@ttu.edu Texas Tech University Department of Psychological Sciences Lubbock, TX References