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.