Disconfirmation of Person Expectations by Older and Younger Adults: Implications for Social Vigilance

Abstract

The research examined whether age-related cognitive declines affect performance when people form impressions of others. The results from Experiment 1 showed that young and old participants who held positive expectancies about an individual spent more time processing and had better memory for information that was inconsistent rather than consistent with their expectancies. But participants who held negative expectancies tended to focus on information that was consistent rather than inconsistent with their expectancies. In Experiment 2 the task was made more demanding by limiting the amount of time participants had to form their impressions. Under these conditions, older participants who had positive expectations showed deficits in memory for negative information compared with young participants. As expected, both groups performed similarly when they held negative expectancies for the target. The results suggest that although both older and younger adults process social information similarly under self-paced conditions, older adults may be at a disadvantage processing negative information about positively characterized individuals when the context in which impression formation occurs is cognitively demanding.

Age Differences in the Bases for Social Judgments: Tests of a Social Expertise Perspective

“…For example, performance might be examined within the context of declining general cognitive resources to test the hypothesis that the development of this expertise might be adaptive for older adults by allowing them to maintain high levels of functioning with minimal drain on resources. Within this same vein, it may be interesting to see if aging and associated cognitive declines limit the flexibility with which this expertise can be applied, as suggested by Ybarra and Park (2002). Studies that examine these interacting forces should provide us with a better understanding of the impact of aging on everyday social cognitive functioning.…”

User Perspective on the Generation Gap in Using Internet of Things – IoTs: A Conceptual Framework

“…It has been generally argued that there were issues in the use of information related to generation gap, and generation gap strongly influenced the adoption of technology and communication technologies [25]. One of the studies by Ybarra and Park, -Disconfirmation of Person Expectations by Older and Younger Adults: Implications for Social Vigilance" [18], has helped the authors of this paper confirm the relationship between age and our ‗technology trusting expectation' variable. In addition, one finding from one of Ybarra and Park's studies [18] that -Participants from both age groups tended to preferentially process and remember information that was inconsistent rather than consistent with positive expectancies.…”

“…One of the studies by Ybarra and Park, -Disconfirmation of Person Expectations by Older and Younger Adults: Implications for Social Vigilance" [18], has helped the authors of this paper confirm the relationship between age and our ‗technology trusting expectation' variable. In addition, one finding from one of Ybarra and Park's studies [18] that -Participants from both age groups tended to preferentially process and remember information that was inconsistent rather than consistent with positive expectancies. However, when the participants held negative expectancies about the target, they tended to preferentially remember information that was consistent rather than inconsistent with the expectancies.…”

“…This study proposed a conceptual framework of user perspective on the generation gap in using IoTs. The conceptual framework explains the gap between generations in their satisfaction of IoTs usage and is based on the following ideas: Oliver's expected confirmation theory [16]; the educational technology gap model of Bohler et al [17]; Ybarra and Park's findings of disconfirmation of person expectations of older and younger adults [18], and Expected disconfirmation theory (EDT) and a model of trust in technology of Lankton et al [19]. Next section reviews these ideas.…”

Dividing Time: Concurrent Timing of Auditory and Visual Events by Young and Elderly Adults

“…Participants returned the next day to complete a standard Stroop color-naming task (Stroop, 1935) and a reading span working memory task (Salthouse & Meinz, 1995; Ybarra & Park, 2002). For the Stroop task, participants were presented with neutral trials, which contained the stimulus @@@@@ in different colors, and incongruent trials, which contained color words in a different color (e.g., the word green written in red ink).…”