Abstract EN:

In a total of four experiments, we tested our strategy hypothesis in arithmetic problem solving where effects of age-based stereotype threat have never been previously investigated. In two types of arithmetic tasks (problem verification, e.g., 19 x 7 = 131 True or False? in Expt. 1 and computational estimation, e.g., 32 x 67 in Expts. 2, 3, & 4), we found that threat led older adults to obtain poorer performance, to adopt less systematically and less often the better strategy on each arithmetic problem, to repeat the same strategy across trials even when it was inappropriate, and to execute available strategies more poorly. We also found that poorer strategy use mediated threat effects, individual differences in processing resources moderated individuals’ sensitivity to effects of stereotype threat and, threat effects though extant in Asian culture, are relatively more pronounced in older adults from Western culture. The overall findings in this thesis revealed that strategic variations are key mechanisms for effects of age-based stereotype threat to occur even in domains where age-related decrease in performance are smaller (like arithmetic). It also documents how domain-general and domain-specific processing resources moderate individual differences in age-based stereotype threat effects, and cultural differences in the occurrence of age-based stereotype threat effects. These findings have important implications to further understand age-based (and other) stereotype threat effects, and how a strategy perspective like the one adopted here provides important insights on how non-cognitive factors (like stereotype threat) modulate age-related changes in human cognition.