Effects Of Different Valence Meta-stereotypes On Emotional And Cognitive Performance Of The Elderly

Meta-stereotypes are defined as the belief that in-group members expect out-group members to hold towards them,which is the individual’s subjective experience.The valence of meta-stereotypes is affected by the difference of group and inter-group communication situation,and the positive and negative stereotypes existing in society will be internalized into the individual’s own cognitive structure(Levy,2003),so the valence of meta-stereotypes are not only negative,but also positive or neutral(Anseel,2011).Oldenhuis et al.(2007)believed that the activation effect of meta-stereotypes follows the principle of "reciprocity",the activation effect of meta-stereotypes are corresponding to its valence.That is,activation of positive meta-stereotypes will increase positive affects or decrease negative affects,and enhance cognitive and behavioral performance,while activation of negative meta-stereotypes will increase negative affects or decrease positive affects,and decrease cognitive and behavioral performance.However,there is still a lack of in-depth research on the effects of different meta-stereotypes activation on affects and cognitive ability.In 2020,the National Bureau of Population Statistics released a report on relevant population data in China.As of the beginning of 2020,the number of elderly people over the age of 60 in China has reached 254 million,accounting for 18.1% of the total population of nearly 1.5 billion.The report predicts that in about three years,China will finally truly step into an aging society.The more elderly people there are,the more serious the social problem will be.Therefore,how to correctly settle the social problems arising from the increasing number of elderly people has become one of the exigent problems to be resolved in China.Among these exigent problems,the physical and mental health matters which are most closely related to the elderly group themselves have received extensive attention and many in-depth studies.As the members of vulnerable groups,the elderly may more concern about the views of other groups than the members of dominant groups.Therefore,it is very necessary to analyze and study the psychological aspects of different valence meta-stereotypes on the the elderly groups and explore how to enhance the mental health level of the old people.This study consists of two experiments.One part is to investigate the emotional and cognitive effects of meta-stereotype activation by different valence elements in 77 elderly people under different cognitive load tasks by using self-rating scale of emotion and N-back cognitive tasks.The results showed that: 1.The accuracy of positive meta-stereotype activation group was significantly higher than that of negative meta-stereotype activation group and inactive group,and the accuracy of negative meta-stereotype activation group was significantly lower than that of inactive group.The accuracy of high difficulty missions was significantly lower than that of low difficulty missions.2.The response time of the positive meta-stereotype activation group was significantly faster than that of the negative meta-stereotype activation group and the inactive group,and the response time of the negative meta-stereotype activation group was significantly longer than that of the inactive group.The response time of the high difficulty missions were significantly longer than those of the low difficulty missions.3.The positive affects score of the positive meta-stereotype activation group and the inactive group was significantly higher than that of the negative meta-stereotype activation group,and the negative affects score of the negative meta-stereotype activation group was significantly higher than that of the positive meta-stereotype activation group and the inactive group.There was no significant difference in the positive affects score and negative affects score between the positive meta-stereotype activation group and the inactive group.In the second study,we examined the effects of imagined inter-group contact on negative affects and cognitive performance induced by activation of negative meta-stereotypes in 73 elderly adults.The results showed that: 1.The response time of the imagined inter-group contact group and the imagined landscape group was significantly faster than that of the non-imagined group,but the difference of response time between the imagined inter-group contact group and the imagined landscape group was not significant.2.The accuracy of the imagined inter-group contact group and the imagined landscape group was significantly better than that of the non-imagined group,but the accuracy of the imagined inter-group contact group and the imagined landscape group was not significantly different.3.After imagining inter-group contact and imagining scenery,the subjects’ affects were improved,which showed that positive affects increased and negative affects decreased.These results suggest that the activation of different valence meta-stereotypes in the elderly follows the principle of "reciprocity",that is,activation of positive meta-stereotypes can induce positive affects and improve individuals’ cognitive performance,while activation of negative meta-stereotypes can induce negative affects and reduce individuals’ cognitive performance.Both imagining inter-group contact and imagining scenery can effectively alleviate the negative effects of activation of negative meta-stereotypes,that is,improve the adverse mood and cognitive performance of the elderly.