Abstract
Previous research has shown that the cognitive generalizations we maintain about ourselves, termed self-schemas, influence how we process self-referent information. This study investigated the operation of self-schemas in the domain of age. In the first phase of the study, 50 young adult men and women completed a scale designed to measure their age schematicity. One week later, these same adults completed computer reaction time tasks in which they were asked to identity whether or not 40 age-related trait adjectives were self-descriptive and to respond to questions about their subjective age. It was predicted that adults who were schematic for age would make faster judgments about age-related material than those who were aschematic. The results supported the notion that age schemas operate like other schemas that guide the processing of information about the self.
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Montepare, J.M., Clements, A.E. “Age Schemas”: Guides to Processing Information About the Self. Journal of Adult Development 8, 99–108 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026493818246
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026493818246