Aging and predictive reasoning: The influence of personal variables in the performance of older adults

Resumen

The influence of personal variables in the performance of older adults in predictive reasoning with stereotyped contents was analysed. Our specific aims were to know: a) if there were gender differences in sensitivity to masculines and feminine stereotyped contents; b) the relative strength of gender-stereotyped contents in relation to the task data; and c) the type of verbal explanations given for categorical choices. Personal variables such as motivation, self-capacity and familiarity with the task were taken into account. The sample included 43 participants over 65 years old. The task varied in the content of base rate information (masculine and feminine stereotypes) and in the congruence or incongruence of the individuating data. Base rate choices, confidence scores and explanations of the choices were registered. Results indicated that older adults were able to build one-dimensional models with both types of content, which varied under congruence/incongruence between sources of information, as well as in rationales for the different choices, in the same way as children and adults in previous research but with a greater influence of personal variables in the participant´s performance levels. The stereotyped content was not important in predicting an outcome. The main conclusion is that older adults have a similar pattern of cognitive performance with predictive reasoning tasks when compared with other age-groups. They update and integrate all the information into a plausible model of the problem but more in relation to personal contextual variables than from a pattern determined by biological aging of cognitive functioning.