Testing the Reserve Capacity Model: Does Race Moderate the Relationship Between Negative Emotions and Neurocognition?

To test whether race moderates the relationship between negative emotions and neurocognition by applying the reserve capacity model within a large sample that spans adulthood.

The study sample (N = 1,020) consisted of community-dwelling adults between 18 and 84 years of age who were drawn from the Virginia Cognitive Aging Project. Demographic variables were used to match a sample of Black participants to a sample of White participants. Race was examined as a moderator of the relationship between negative emotions (i.e., depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and the negative affect subscale from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) and neurocognitive variables (episodic memory, reasoning, spatial visualization, and processing speed) with multiple-group structural equation modeling.

After accounting for sociodemographic variables, depressive symptoms were negatively associated with processing speed in both groups, and with worse reasoning in the White subsample. Negative affect was associated with lower reasoning performance in both groups and with lower spatial visualization in the White subsample. Trait anxiety was not significantly associated with the neurocognitive constructs in either group. Multigroup structural equation models showed that the magnitudes of the associations were not different between the Black and White subsamples. Thus, race did not moderate the relationships between depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and negative affect with neurocognition.

Negative emotions are associated with lower performance on different neurocognitive tasks, but race does not moderate these relationships. Future research should examine perceived discrimination or other psychosocial variables when examining the relationships among negative emotions and neurocognition.