Negative Aging Stereotypes Impair Performance on Brief Cognitive Tests Used to Screen for Predementia

Marie Mazerolle, Isabelle Régner, Sarah J Barber, Marc Paccalin, Aimé-Chris Miazola, Pascal Huguet and François Rigalleau

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2017, vol. 72, issue 6, 932-936

Abstract: Objectives: There is today ample evidence that negative aging stereotypes impair healthy older adults’ performance on cognitive tasks. Here, we tested whether these stereotypes also decrease performance during the screening for predementia on short cognitive tests widely used in primary care. Method: An experiment was conducted on 80 healthy older adults taking the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) under Threat or Reduced-threat condition. Results: Stereotype threat significantly impaired older adults’ performance on both tests, resulting in 40% of older adults meeting the screening criteria for predementia, compared with 10% in Reduced-threat condition (MMSE and MoCA averaged).Discussion: Our research highlights the influence of aging stereotypes on short cognitive tests used to screen for predementia. It is of critical importance that physicians provide a threat-free testing environment. Further research should clarify whether this socially induced bias may also operate in secondary care by generating false positives.

Keywords: Aging stereotypes; Dementia; Mild Cognitive Impairment; MMSE; MoCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbw083 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:72:y:2017:i:6:p:932-936.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().