Cognitive decline and older adults' perception of stigma controllability

Emerging research suggests that older adults who experience age-related declines in regulatory abilities may have more difficulty inhibiting their expression of negative bias to stigmatized individuals as compared with young adults. However, it remains largely unexplored why this might be. For instance, older adults may hold stigmatized individuals more accountable for their conditions as compared with young adults, which could subsequently increase their expression of negative bias. The current study investigated this question by testing 90 older adults and 44 young adults. Researchers found that older adults with relatively impaired executive function placed a greater emphasis on controllability when evaluating stigmatized individuals and rated the stigmatized conditions overall as being more changeable.