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Popular stereotypes of aging affect the performance of seniors in a number of different domains, from memory performance to physiological response. The authors undertook a review of this area, in which they examined 17 studies that looked at the impact of stereotype primes on older individuals' cognitive, physical, physiological and psychological performance. Analyses included investigating the effects of both positive and negative age stereotypes, and implicit and explicit priming methodologies. The authors utilized a meta-analytic technique on a subset of studies that examined the impact of priming on memory performance. This yielded an effect size of 0.38. The results suggest that popular stereotypes of aging (and the corresponding subtle changes in the testing environment) are important variables to consider for those researchers testing performance of seniors.

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This study aimed to determine whether: (a) isometric handgrip (IHG) training lowers resting blood pressure (BP), (b) cardiovascular reactivity to a serial subtraction (SST), IHG (IHGT), and cold pressor (CPT) task predicts this hypotensive response, and (c) cardiovascular reactivity is attenuated posttraining. Resting BP and cardiovascular reactivity to a SST, IHGT, and CPT were measured in 24 hypertensives (51-74 years) before and after 10 weeks of IHG training (n = 12) or control (n = 12). IHG training lowered resting BP (Δ8/5 mmHg), whereby the decrease in systolic BP was correlated to pretraining systolic BP reactivity to the SST (r = -.85) and IHGT (r = -.79; all ps < .01), but not the CPT (r = .34; p > .01). Furthermore, following IHG training, systolic BP reactivity to the SST (Δ7 mmHg) and IHGT (Δ8 mmHg) was reduced (all ps < .01). The results offer promising implications for hypertensives and may provide a tool to identify IHG training responders.

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