Biomedical subjects

I G Prager

Publications and source records attributed to I G Prager.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Ain't misbehavin': the effects of age and intentionality on judgments about misconduct.

In 2 person perception experiments, young and older perceivers read a scenario about a young or old female target who leaves a store without paying for a hat. In Experiment 1, the target claims she forgot she was wearing the hat when questioned by the manager. Perceivers thought the manager would have greater sympathy, less anger, and would recommend less punishment when the target was old. In Experiment 2, the target clearly forgot to pay for the hat, clearly stole it, or had ambiguous intentions. In the ambiguous condition, perceivers attributed the young target's behavior more to stealing and the old target's behavior more to forgetting. In the forget condition, young perceivers had equal sympathy for the young and old targets and held them similarly responsible, but older perceivers had greater sympathy for the forgetful old target and held her less responsible than they did the forgetful young target.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Age and excuses for forgetting: self-handicapping versus damage-control strategies.

Either before or after being interviewed for a volunteer position, a young or old protagonist (i.e., target) gave an excuse for forgetting. Study participants (i.e., perceivers) had a higher opinion of the target's memory, were more confident in the target's capability of performing memory-related tasks, and attributed the target's memory failures more to bad luck when the excuse was given after (damage-control strategy) rather than before (self-handicapping strategy) the interview. Moreover, the excuse given before the interview had no significant effect on perceivers' judgments when compared with data from an earlier study in which the target gave no excuse for forgetting. The present findings suggest that a damage-control strategy can ameliorate negative capability impressions.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Forgetful but forgiven: how age and life style affect perceptions of memory failure.

Young and older perceivers read a narrative in which a forgetful young or old target was described as having either a young or old life style. Perceivers attributed memory failures more to mental difficulty for old targets but to lack of effort for young targets, regardless of life style. Life style did make a difference in perceivers' memory opinion and sympathy for the old but not for the young targets. Perceivers had a less negative memory opinion when the old target had an old rather than a young life style. Also, the old target with the old life style elicited a greater degree of sympathy in young perceivers, but a lesser degree of sympathy in older perceivers.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Age and forgetfulness: confidence in ability and attribution for memory failures.

Perceivers read a script of a forgetful young, middle-aged, or older male or female target being interviewed for a volunteer position. Afterward perceivers rated their opinion of the target's memory, confidence in the target's capability of performing tasks, and attributions for the target's memory failures. Perceivers were more confident and attributed failures more to lack of effort and attention when targets experienced episodic than semantic memory failures. Perceivers' memory opinion was less negative for older than for young and middle-aged targets, but their confidence ratings were equivalent across target age groups. Perceivers used an age-based double standard in their attribution ratings. However, double-standard evidence was not as strong as in prior studies using less evaluative contexts.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Age and forgetfulness: the effect of implicit priming.

Participants (i.e., perceivers) unscrambled either memory-related phrases (experimental group) or memory-neutral phrases (control group). Then perceivers read a vignette about a forgetful young, middle-aged, or old target person, after which they rated (a) the target's forgetfulness and (b) how difficult each of 12 tasks (4 low, 4 medium, and 4 high in memory load) would be for the target. High-memory-load tasks were rated as more difficult by perceivers in the experimental group than by perceivers in the control group. Thus, implicit priming of a forgetfulness schema resulted in harsher judgments about how difficult high-memory-load tasks would be for forgetful targets. However, this priming effect was no stronger for old than for young or middle-aged targets.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Age and forgetfulness: absolute versus comparison decisions about capability.

Perceivers were assigned to one of two decision conditions. In an absolute decision condition, perceivers rated how likely they would be to allow a young or old highly forgetful, slightly forgetful, or nonforgetful target to perform a challenging task. In a comparison decision condition, perceivers rated two targets, one young and one old, who had a similar level of forgetfulness. Separate Decision Type x Target Forgetfulness analyses of variance were conducted on ratings of the two target age groups. Young targets received higher ratings in the comparison than in the absolute condition, whereas old targets were rated the same in the two conditions. There was some preference for young targets in a comparison situation, but it was concluded that forgetfulness was a more important factor than age in perceivers' ratings.

Adolescent↗