Enhancing Older Drivers’ Safety: On Effects Induced by Stereotype Threat to Older Adults’ Driving Performance, Working Memory and Self-Regulation

Abstract

In a study concerned with driving behaviors of older drivers (mean age 70 years) in a driving simulator, our findings indicate that telling older drivers that they are more at risk of accidents because of their age and their driving performance-related decline (i.e., exposing them to a stereotype threat concerning older drivers) severely impairs their self-regulatory skills. Moreover, our results show that this is at least partly due to exhaustion of the executive resources (older drivers under stereotype threat tended to contradict the stereotype of being slow by driving faster), appearing also through working memory overload (older drivers under stereotype threat performed markedly less well in a modular arithmetic task than drivers in the control condition). We thus complete the existing evidence that older drivers’ performance may be affected by socially-grounded factors, suggesting that simply being investigated may be enough to tax many capabilities in older people. We also propose that stereotype threat might be at least a partial explanation for why older drivers sometimes have poorer self-regulation performances after attending rehabilitation programs designed to make older drivers safer ones.

Transportation and Aging: An Updated Research Agenda for Advancing Safe Mobility

“…Studies also use different outcomes (e.g., raising awareness, enhancing performance, reducing risk) and interventions that address one outcome may not impact others. For example, Brelet et al (2016) suggested that telling older drivers they are at-risk may impair their self-regulatory skills, and Ferring, Tournier, and Mancini (2015) recommended avoiding using chronological age as a sole driving risk factor to stop negative stereotyping and premature driving cessation. Thus, while the last decade has been exciting, overall, with the unveiling of multiple effective interventions, the coming years—with emerging vehicle technology—may offer opportunities to further optimize the safety and mobility of older adults.…”

The applied implications of age-based stereotype threat for older adults.

“…Within the domain of driving, there is evidence that OAs show stereotype reactance. In response to a stereotype-threat manipulation, OAs drive faster than they do in a control condition, and this response contradicts the stereotype that OAs are slow drivers (Brelet et al, 2016). Furthermore, faster driving in response to stereotype threat is particularly pronounced amongst OAs who highly value having the ability to drive (Joanisse et al, 2013).…”

Experiencing daily negative aging stereotypes and real-life cognitive functioning in older adults: A diary study.

“…From this perspective, older adults' cognitive functioning should be negatively affected not only by cognitive-related aging stereotypes but also by other aging stereotypes. Indeed, experimental studies have shown that activating the aging stereotype about poor driving skills led to working memory overload in older adults (Brelet et al, 2016). Thus, we can infer that in everyday life, older adults' cognitive functioning may fail in situations where they experience a variety of negative aging stereotypes; that is, the more negative aging stereotypes older adults experience, the poorer their cognitive functioning.…”