Social Cognition

Change in the relative importance of social goals as people grow older profoundly influences how individuals interpret and use social information. Laura Carstensen and colleagues suggest that emotional goals become increasingly important and salient across the adult life span. They have demonstrated that older adults pay more attention to emotional information in text, and thus remember it better than neutral information. Another motivational goal shown to influence social information processing is cognitive style or how one approaches problem solving. For example, an individual with a high need for closure, such as the need to come to quick and decisive answers without deliberation, is more likely to commit the correspondence bias. Hess and colleagues found that need for closure did not influence judgment biases in young and middle-aged adults, but did predict social judgment biases in older adults. Because of age-related changes in personal resources (both social and cognitive), motivational factors (such as need for closure) oriented toward conserving resources may become more important to the older adult.