DO OLDER ADULTS WITH DEMENTIA TRIGGER DEATH-RELATED THOUGHTS IN YOUNG ADULTS?

摘要

University ofWisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI Terror management theory may apply to ageism; older adults may be associated with mortality, thereby priming death-related thoughts (Martens, Goldenberg, & Greenberg, 2005).Mortality salience is associated with emotional coping strategies, like stereotyping and sensitivity to positive emotions (DeWaIl & Baumeister, 2007; Renkema, Stapel, Maringer, & van Yperen, 2008).The current study investigated whether older adults with dementia would elicit particularly strong emotions and mortality salience from young adults.Undergraduate participants (N = 240) were randomly assigned to read one of eight vignettes.Target age (given as 29 or 71) and health status (given as normal, unspecified arthritis, or dementia) were manipulated.Then, participants rated their emotions of pity, fear, admiration, empathy, and anger toward the target and completed a word stem task to measure death-related tiioughts.A MANOVA showed that older targets with dementia received significantly higher pity ratings than all other targets, as well as higher empathy and fear ratings than younger targets without health conditions (ps <0.05).Admiration and anger ratings did not differ between targets.The frequency of death-related words was dichotomized (0 = no words generated and 1 = any words generated), and logistic regression was performed.01der target age was associated with greater odds of generating death-related words (OR = 3.30; ? < 0.05), but target health status was not significant.