Implicit Aging: Masked Age Primes Influence Effort-Related Cardiovascular Response in Young Adults

Abstract

Based on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model and evidence that aging is associated with cognitive difficulties, this experiment investigated the effect of masked age primes on young adults’ effort-related cardiovascular response during a mental arithmetic task. We predicted that elderly primes should activate the aging stereotype and thus render the performance difficulty concept accessible, while youth primes should activate the performance ease concept—similarly, as affect primes do. The accessible difficulty or ease concepts, in turn, should influence experienced demand and thus effort-related cardiovascular response during cognitive performance. A neutral prime control condition should fall into these conditions. We found the expected effects on performance-related responses of heart rate (HR) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP): For both measures, the elderly primes led to the strongest reactivity, the youth primes led to the weakest reactivity, and the neutral-prime control condition fell in between these conditions.