Age differences in advertisement preferences: Implications for goal changes across adulthood

People of different ages prioritize different types of goals. Socioemotional selectivity theory holds that as people age and perceive time as more limited, they attach increasingly greater importance to goals that are emotionally meaningful. The theory is well supported by findings concerning social preferences. Compared to younger adults, older adults in both western and eastern cultures are consistently more likely to prefer emotionally close social partners to novel ones, and these age differences can be modified by manipulating perceived time. The studies reported in this dissertation tested two hypotheses: (1) whether the heightened salience of emotionally meaningful goals leads older adults to find advertisements with emotionally meaningful appeal more attractive, memorable and persuasive than do their younger counterparts, and (2) whether time perspective accounts for these age differences.;Findings provide support for the first hypothesis. Studies 1 & 2 presented younger and older adults with advertisements that were identical in every aspect except whether they appeal to emotionally meaningful goals. Older adults showed more positive attitude toward, and remembered more information from advertisements with emotionally meaningful appeal, relative to other types of advertisements; whereas younger adults did not show such a bias. Study 3 asked younger and older adults to choose from among advertisements with different appeal based on their personal preferences. Compared with younger adults, older adults were more likely to choose advertisements with emotionally meaningful appeal.;However, findings provide only preliminary support for the role of time in these age differences. Study 2 found that after statistically controlling for time perspective, older adults no longer displayed significantly more positive attitude and better memory toward advertisements with emotionally meaningful appeal. Study 3 also found that for one set of advertisements, experimentally expanding perceived time eliminated older adults' preference for advertisements with emotionally meaningful appeal. Yet, consistent effects were not observed for another set of advertisements or when perceived time was experimentally limited. Future studies on other aspects of advertisements and domain-specificity of time perspective are needed to shed light on these equivocal findings.