Leveraging goals to incentivize healthful behaviors across adulthood.

Raposo, Sarah; Hogan, Candice L.; Barnes, Jessica T; Chemudupati, Teja; Carstensen, Laura L.

doi:10.1037/pag0000428

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…For instance, our findings could reflect age-related differences in perceived efficacy of distancing and donating during the pandemic or anxiety regarding the economic impact. We believe that our findings transcend the current pandemic and support past empirical and theoretical accounts of increased prosociality among older adults in other contexts [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . Crucially, we demonstrate age-related differences in prosocial behavior in the majority of countries across the globe.…”

Section: Nature Agingsupporting

confidence: 82%

Older adults across the globe exhibit increased prosocial behavior but also greater in-group preferences

2021

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Population aging is a global phenomenon with substantial implications across society1,2. Prosocial behaviors—actions that benefit others—promote mental and physical health across the lifespan3,4 and can save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined whether age predicts prosociality in a preregistered global study (46,576 people aged 18–99 across 67 countries) using two acutely relevant measures: distancing during COVID-19 and willingness to donate to hypothetical charities. Age positively predicted prosociality on both measures, with increased distancing and donations among older adults. However, older adults were more in-group focused than younger adults in choosing who to help, making larger donations to national over international charities and reporting increased in-group preferences. In-group preferences helped explain greater national over international donations. Results were robust to several control analyses and internal replication. Our findings have vital implications for predicting the social and economic impacts of aging populations, increasing compliance with public health measures and encouraging charitable donations.

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Section: Nature Agingsupporting

confidence: 82%

Older adults across the globe exhibit increased prosocial behavior but also greater in-group preferences

2021

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“…Consistent with this age-related preference for emotional meaning, intriguing neuroimaging evidence indicates that age-related changes in motivation are associated with greater concern for the common good (Mayr & Freund, 2020), suggesting that messages with a focus on social impact may be particularly effective among older segments of the population. A recent study comparing different types of financial incentives aimed at increasing walking found that older people significantly increased their step counts when incentives involved earning money for charities, whereas younger people did not (Raposo et al, 2021).…”

Section: Implications For Effective Communication and Messagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Raposo, S., Hogan, C. L., Barnes, J. T., Chemudupati, T., & Carstensen, L. L. (2021). (See References).…”

Section: Recommended Readingunclassified

Beyond Stereotypes: Using Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Improve Messaging to Older Adults

Carstensen

Hershfield

2021

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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The tremendous heterogeneity in functional and demographic characteristics of the over-65 age group presents challenges to effective marketing and public-health communications. Messages grounded on tacit assumptions that older people are frail, incompetent, and needy risk being overlooked by most of the older population; on the other hand, ignoring age-associated vulnerabilities is problematic. We argue that although traditional approaches to market segmentation based on chronological age often fail, reliable age differences in motivation influence the types of information that older people typically prefer, attend to, and remember, and these differences can be used to inform communication efforts. Socioemotional selectivity theory maintains that as future time horizons grow limited—as they typically do with age—emotional goals are prioritized over goals that focus on exploration. As time left becomes more limited, positive messages are remembered better than negative ones, and products that help people savor the moment are preferred over those that benefit the long-term future. In addition, emphasizing individual strengths and personal resilience is likely to be especially appealing to older people.

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“…Findings from two national daily diary studies in the USA suggest that older adults dedicate more time to formal volunteering and unpaid assistance (for example, babysitting or helping with shopping) than younger adults 9 . In a study that examined responsiveness to financial incentives in young, middle-aged and older adults, a, Raposo et al 10 examined age differences in responses to financial incentives to increase walking as measured by accelerometers. In one condition, participants were told that they could earn money for charities by increasing daily step counts.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reproduced by permission from ref. 10 . b, Hubbard et al 12 found a linear association of age with general benevolence as indexed by neural activation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%