When I'm 64 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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3 Motivation and Behavioral Change
3 Motivation and Behavioral Change
Pages 34-53
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From page 34... ...
Such behaviors carried out in early and midlife have profound effects on well-being throughout the life span. The committee considered the factors that promote or obstruct attempts at change, as well as the factors that support or interfere with the maintenance of change.
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From page 35... ...
. Deferral of action has also been well documented in employer-sponsored savings plans and health insurance plans: default "options" are far more likely to be adopted than alternatives, for example (Choi, Laibson, Madrian, and Metrick, 2003)
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From page 36... ...
Indeed, failures of self-regulation are among the most important and perplexing problems facing modern society, and, for reasons discussed above, they may pose especially serious difficulties for older people. Self-regulation is becoming increasingly well understood in social psychology, with an ever-increasing emphasis on how motivational factors may be important for successful self-regulation.
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From page 37... ...
At the same time, neuroscientists have made tremendous gains in understanding the link between brain and behavior, but too often these findings are not informed by the social and cultural contexts that shape and guide human lives. Thus, research is needed that crosses levels of analysis, from molecular genetics to social psychology and sociology.
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From page 38... ...
. Social psychologists have long been interested in examining and promoting methods that can be used to encourage people to engage in healthful behaviors (Salovey, Rothman, and Rodin, 1998)
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From page 39... ...
. Inherent in this idea is that notion that some degree of negative affect is crucial for initiating change; people do not attempt to fix what they don't believe is broken.
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From page 40... ...
. One hypothesis is that with age it becomes harder to make behavioral changes, but once those changes are initiated, older adults find them easier to maintain.
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From page 41... ...
MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIORAL CHANGE 41 more stable daily routines (Park et al., 1999) and psychotherapy efficacy is as good with adults between the ages of 61 and 90 as with their younger counterparts ages 21 to 59 (e.g., Reynolds et al., 1996)
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From page 42... ...
According to selectivity theory, perceived constraints on time result in motivational changes that favor goals related to regulating emotional states over goals associated with gaining knowledge or otherwise expanding one's horizons. In studies that use social choice paradigms, for example, older participants are reliably more likely to opt for well-known, emotionally significant partners over novel social partners (Fredrickson and Carstensen, 1990; Fung and Carstensen, 2004; Fung, Carstensen, and Lutz, 1999; Fung, Lai, and Ng, 2001)
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From page 43... ...
Considered together, it is apparent that the more positive emotional experiences of older adults may discourage initial change but serve to enhance any changes that do occur. Research should examine the general role of affect in self-regulation, with an emphasis on how emotional changes that occur during aging may be associated with initiation or maintenance.
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From page 44... ...
As discussed above, relapse is commonly associated with perceived emotional distress (Brownell, Marlatt, Lichtenstein, and Wilson, 1986) , but significant others may be able to assuage negative emotional experiences by helping people cope with high-risk situations (Marlatt, 1985)
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From page 45... ...
. PERSUASION AND ATTITUDE CHANGE In addition to self-regulation processes, social psychologists have developed a rich literature on the psychological processes underlying attitude formation and change.
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From page 46... ...
Considerable research has examined attitude change processes in younger adults and much can be learned from this work. In contrast, relatively little effort has been aimed at understanding how older adults form or change their attitudes.
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From page 47... ...
. Explicit attitudes are those evaluations that a person consciously endorses; implicit attitudes are evaluative tendencies that may be automatically activated without a person's awareness (Fazio and Olson, 2003)
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From page 48... ...
One reason the amount of thinking behind one's attitudes is important is because thoughtful attitudes tend to be more persistent over time, more resistant to change, and more influential on one's behavior. Also, people tend to have more confidence in judgments that are based on large amounts of information, and judgments based on considerable thinking tend to be more accessible (see Petty and Krosnick, 1995)
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From page 49... ...
For example, if some older adults hold negative implicit or explicit attitudes toward old people generally (Richeson and Shelton, in this volume) , the normal positive effects of tailoring would not be expected.
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From page 50... ...
. As a result, people tend to exaggerate the positive aspects of the chosen alternative and minimize the positive features of the rejected alternative after making their choice.
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From page 51... ...
Since the consequences of attitudes and behaviors formed in early and midlife are so profound in later life, this and related research topics are on the committee's suggested research agenda. Changing Implicit and Explicit Attitudes As noted above, social psychologists have recently begun to explore the possibility that individuals may hold not only explicit attitudes, those that can be reported on direct self-assessments, but also implicit attitudes, automatic evaluative tendencies of which people may not be aware and that can sometimes conflict with the explicit attitude (see Wilson et al., 2002)
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From page 52... ...
Given evidence that older adults are generally satisfied with their lives and that they avoid negative information, it is possible that the factors that prompt and support change are very different for older adults than for younger ones. However, it is as yet unclear whether self-regulatory differences observed as a function of age are due to changes in cognitive skills, functional neurological capacities, degree of experienced negative affect, or some other factors.
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From page 53... ...
Very little is known about persuasion processes in older people -- and how they might differ from those of younger adults -- or about the roles of racial, cultural, or ethnic preferences in those processes over the life course. Given that older adults are motivated to avoid processing negative information and perhaps are more likely to use heuristic processing than younger adults, it is possible that framing or tailoring messages to older audiences might be an especially efficacious means of encouraging long-term change.
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