Featured in Newsletter #021 "How Many Children Shall We Have

Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenariosfor 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for
the Global Burden of Disease Study

Vollset et al

The Laqncet 2020, Vol396 1285-1306

Understanding potential patterns in future population levelsis crucial for anticipating and planning for changing age structures, resource
and health-care needs, and environmental and economic landscapes. Future fertility patterns are a key input to estimation of future population size, but they are surrounded by substantial uncertainty and diverging methodologies of estimation and forecasting, leading to important differences in global population projections. Changing population size and age structure might have profound economic, social, and geopolitical impacts in many countries. In this study, we developed novel methods for forecasting mortality, fertility, migration, and population. We also assessed potential economic and geopolitical effects of future demographic shifts.

We modelled future population in reference and alternativescenarios as a function of fertility, migration, and mortality rates. We
developed statistical models for completed cohort fertility at age 50 years (CCF50). Completed cohort fertility is much more stable over time than the period measure of the total fertility rate (TFR). We modelled CCF50 as a time-series random walk function of educational attainment and contraceptive met need. Age-specific fertility rates were modelled as a function of CCF50 and covariates. We modelled age-specific mortality to 2100 using underlying mortality, a risk factor scalar, and an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. Net migration was modelled as a function of the Socio-demographic Index, crude population growth rate, and deaths from war and
natural disasters; and use of an ARIMA model. The model framework was used to develop a reference scenario and alternative scenarios based on the pace of change in educational attainment and contraceptive met need. We estimated the size of gross domestic product for each country and territory in the reference scenario. Forecast uncertainty intervals (UIs) incorporated uncertainty propagated from past data inputs, model estimation, and forecast data distributions.

Findings suggest a shifting age structure in many parts ofthe world, with 2·37 billion (1·91–2·87) individuals older than 65 years and
1·70 billion (1·11–2·81) individuals younger than 20 years, forecasted globally in 2100. By 2050, 151 countries were forecasted to have a TFR lower than the replacement level.

Featured in #040 Newsletter Shopping: Carts and Perceptions

" EXPRESS: Getting a handle on Sales: Shopping Carts affect purchasing by Activating Arm Muscles",

Estes, Z.; Streicher

Journal of Marketing, (2022) 1-18

This Journal of Marketing study tested a completely different handle design for supermarket trolleys. They replaced the horizontal pushing bar with two handles comparable to a wheel barrow. These were on either side of the trolley. They were about 10 centimetres lower than the traditional handle. The objective was to activate the biceps rather than the triceps.

A field study in a real supermarket demonstrated surprising results. The new design induced shoppers to spend more than the normal design. Not only did they spend more money they bought more items. Not only more items but more unique items. The trolley seemed to induce “impulse purchases”. Only the buying of "stockpile" products did not change.

Our perception is not just influenced by our traditional senses. It can also be affected the muscles that we use. There is, in fact, a large literature in psychology on the impact of using the biceps or the triceps.

Researchers suggested that this is due again to the associations within our memory. The biceps are used to draw things towards us. We use the biceps to bring food to our mouths. We use the biceps to draw those that we love to ourselves. The triceps are associated with “pushing things away”. The “wheel barrow handles” were shown to activate the biceps. In one study respondents were asked to evaluate Chinese characters. They could not speak Chinese so the ideographs were meaningless. Half the characters were assessed whilst pressing down on the table with the palms of the hands. The other half with the hands pressing upwards on the underside of the table. Pressing down activates the triceps, pressing up the biceps. With the biceps engaged identical characters were evaluated more positively.

Smart Shopping Carts: How Real Time Feedback InfluencesSpending

Koert van Ittersum, Brian Wansink, Joost M.E. Pennings,& Daniel Sheehan

Journal of Marketing 21 Vol. 77 (November 2013), 21 –36

Although interest in smart shopping carts is increasing,both retailers and consumer groups have concerns about how real-time spending feedback will influence shopping behavior. Building on budgeting and spending theories,the authors conduct three lab and grocery store experiments that robustly show that real-time spending feedback has a diverging impact on spending depending on whether a person is budget constrained (“budget” shoppers) or not (“nonbudget” shoppers). Real-time spending feedback stimulates budget shoppers
to spend more (by buying more national brands). In contrast, this feedback leads nonbudget shoppers to spend less (by replacing national brands with store brands). Furthermore, smart shopping carts increase repatronage intentions for budget shoppers while keeping them stable for nonbudget shoppers. These findings underscore fundamental unexplored differences between budget and nonbudget shoppers. Moreover, they have key implications for both brick-and-mortar and online retailers as well as app developers.

Culture and Fertility Featured in Newsletter #043 "Binge Watching"

Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil

La Ferrara, E.; Chung, A.; Duryen, S.

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics,(2012), 1-31

In 1960 the average Brazilian female would have 6.3 children. This had fallen to 2.3 by 2000. It is 1.76 today and dropped below the replacement rate around 2004. The team wanted to understand the drivers of the decline from 1960 to 2000. They used the usual predictors: female education, availability of contraception and prosperity.

It was clear that their models were not explaining everything. Fertility did not drop consistently over time. There was also a lot of variability by geography. Cities and states started to decline at different times. National television started in the middle of the sixties. Television ownership in 1991 had risen to 91%. Education levels in Brazil were generally lower than its neighbours. They wondered whether messages were reaching people more through TV than the classroom.

Soap Operas in Brazil.

The vast majority of people in Brazil watch the soap operas or novellas as they are called. The Rede Globo channel has a virtual monopoly on novellas. It was founded in 1965. Its coverage of the population grew as it rolled out transmission masts around the country. Its coverage in 1980 had grown to 45%. By 1991 it had reached 92%. It is now the fourth largest television station in the world after the three major US channels.

Soap Operas and Fertility

What the researchers realized was that the unexplained drops in fertility corresponded to the roll out of the Globo channel. They could see the drops even in a small metropolitan area covered by a single new mast. They could see that the declines were not happening before the arrival of Globo. Fertility drops instead one year after transmission starts. Fertility is measured by births not pregnancies This was exactly the expected pattern.

To understand why this might be happening they had to look at the content of the novellas. They chose only the 7pm and 8pm shows but still had to watch 110 different series! They spanned the period 1965 to 1999. They watched all episodes to understand the “message” coming from the TV. They were particularly interested in the role of women.

What they found was a novella world a million miles away from the lives of most of the viewers. Of all the lead female characters 62% had no children. 20% had only one child. For characters portrayed as younger than 50, 71% had no children. Even amongst married characters 45% had no children and 30% had only a single child.

Was it these role models influencing fertility or was it simply the TV itself? They looked at the naming pattern for children by geography. They looked at the top 20 most popular names in each area. Many names in the novellas are idiosyncratic. They found a 33% match between the characters and the children’ s names in areas where Globo broadcast. This dropped to 8% in areas where it was not transmitted. People were certainly watching the novellas.

Further evidence came from the details of the characters. The impact on fertility was higher when the age of the woman matched the age of the novella character. Fertility amongst the 15-24 age group in Brazil did not change in the period. Few lead characters were in this age band. The effect is strong for the 25-34 age group and strongest for the 35-44 age group. Lower socio economic age groups appeared to be influenced more. The novellas portrayed aspirational middle class or upper middle class homes.

Why were the Worlds in the Novellas so Different to Reality?

Military dictatorship in Brazil started on April 1st 1964. It lasted for 21 years. Throughout the development of the novella, Brazil was under military censorship. The novellas attracted very high calibre script writers. Many were already important writers looking for a vehicle for their anti- government feelings. The plots were designed to undermine. Over half of the married women characters were having affairs. There is widespread female emancipation at work. The novellas portray women pursuing their own pleasure and love. They are anti-machismo. There is a strong emphasis across all characters on individualism. Homosexuality is acceptable and everyone criticizes religion and traditional values. 

February 2022

Featured in #049 Early Birds and Night Owls  

The aging clock: circadian rhythms and later life

Suzanne Hood and Shimon Amir 

Journal of Clinical Investigation (2017), 437-446 

Circadian rhythms play an influential role in nearly all aspects of physiology and behavior in the vast majority of species on Earth. The biological clockwork that regulates these rhythms is dynamic over the lifespan: rhythmic activities such as sleep/wake patterns change markedly as we age, and in many cases they become increasingly fragmented. Given that prolonged disruptions of normal rhythms are highly detrimental to health, deeper knowledge of how our biological clocks change with age may create valuable opportunities to improve health and longevity for an aging global population. In this Review, we synthesize key findings from the study of circadian rhythms in later life, identify patterns of change documented to date, and review potential physiological mechanisms that may underlie these changes.

Featured in Newsletter #050 Pushed or Pulled Migrants 

Estimation of emigration, return migration, and transitmigration between all pairs of countries

Jonathan J. Azosea, and Adrian E. Rafterya,

116–122 | PNAS | January 2, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 1

We propose a method for estimating migration flows betweenall pairs of countries that allows for decomposition of migration into
emigration, return, and transit components. Current state-of-the[1]art estimates ofbilateral migration flows rely on the assumption that the number of global migrants is as small as possible. We relax this assumption, producing complete estimates of all between country migrationflows with genuine estimates of total global migration. We find that the total number of individuals migraing internationallyhas oscillated between 1.13 and 1.29% of the global population per 5-year period since 1990. Return migration and transit migration are big parts of total migration; roughly one of four migration events is a return to an individual’s country of birth. In the most recent time period, we estimate particularly large return migration flows from the United States to Central and South America and from the Persian Gulf to south Asia

Featured in #056 Beware Psychologists Carrying Tests 

A Sensory Origin for Color-Word Stroop Effects in Aging: Simulating Age-Related Changes in Colorvision Mimics Age-Related Changes in Stroop 

Boaz M. Ben-David & Bruce A. Schneider

Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition (2010) , 730-746

An increase in Stroop effects with age can be interpreted as reflecting age-related reductions in selective attention, cognitive slowing, or
color-vision. In the present study, 88 younger adults performed a Stroop test with two color-sets, saturated and desaturated, to simulate an age-related decrease in color perception. This color manipulation with younger adults was sufficient to lead to an increase in Stroop effects that mimics age-effects. We conclude that age-related changes in color perception can contribute to the differences in Stroop effects observed in aging. Finally, we suggest that the clinical applications of Stroop take this factor into account.

Emergence of a Powerful Connection Between Sensory and Cognitive Functions Across the Adult Life Span: A New Window to the Study of Cognitive Aging? 

Paul B. Baltes and Ulman Lindenberger

Psychology and Aging (1997) 12-21

Six hundred eighty seven individuals ages 25-103 years werestudied cross-sectionally to examine the relationship between measures of
sensory functioning (visual and auditory acuity) and intelligence (14 cognitive tasks representing a 5-factor space of psychometric intelligence). As predicted, the average proportion of individual differences in intellectual functioning connected to sensory functioning increased from 11% in adulthood (25-69 years) to 31% in old age (70-103 years). However, the link between fluid intellectual abilities and sensory functioning, albeit of different size, displayed a similarly high connection to age in both age groups. Several explanations are discussed, including a "common cause" hypothesis. In this vein, we argue that the increase in the age-associated link between
sensory and intellectual functioning may reflect brain aging and that the search for explanations of cognitive aging phenomena would benefit from attending to factors that are shared between domains

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

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

Journals of Gerontology: PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES (2017), 932-936

There is today ampleevidence 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. An experiment was conducted on 80 healthy older adultstaking the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) under Threat or Reduced-threat condition. Stereotype threat significantly impaired older adults’ erformance 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).

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.

Adapting Test Timing to the Sleep-Wake Schedule: Effects on Diurnal Neurobehavioral Performance Changes in Young Evening and Older Morning Chronotypes

Christina Schmidt,Philippe Peigneux, Christian Cajochen, and Fabienne Collette

Chronobiology International, 482–490, (2012)

The synchrony effect refers to the beneficial impact of temporal matching between the timing of cognitive task administration and preferred time-of-day for diurnal activity. Aging is often associated with an advance in sleep wake timing and concomitant optimal performance levels in the morning. In contrast, young adults often perform better in the evening hours. So far, the synchrony effect has been tested at fixed clock times, neglecting the individual’s sleep-wake schedule and thus introducing confounds, such as differences in accumulated sleep pressure or circadian phase, which may exacerbate synchrony effects.

To probe this hypothesis, the authors tested older morning and young evening chronotypes with a psychomotor vigilance and a Stroop paradigm once at fixed morning and evening hours and once adapting testing time to their preferred sleep-wake schedule in a within subject design.

The authors observe a persistence of synchrony effects for overall median reaction times during apsychomotor vigilance task, even when testing time is adapted to the specific individual’s sleep-wake schedule.However, data analysis also indicates that time-of-day modulations are weakened under those conditions forincongruent trials on Stroop performance and the slowest reaction times on the psychomotor vigilance task. Thelatter result suggests that the classically observed synchrony effect may be partially mediated by a series ofparameters, such as differences in socio-professional timing constraints, the amount of accumulated sleep need, orcircadian phase, all leading to differential arousal levels at testing

Effects of Aging and Noise on Real-Time Spoken Word Recognition: Evidence From Eye Movements

Boaz M. Ben-David, Craig G. Chambers, Meredyth Daneman, M. Kathleen Pichora-Fuller, E. M. Reingold, Bruce A. Schneider 

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 243–262, 2011

To use eye tracking to investigate age differences in real-time lexical processing in quiet and in noise in light of the fact that older adults find it more difficult than younger adults to understand conversations in noisy situations.Twenty-four younger and 24 older adults followed spoken instructions referring to depicted objects, for example, “Look at the candle.” Eye movements captured listeners’ ability to differentiate the target noun (candle) from a similarsounding phonological competitor (e.g., candy or sandal). Manipulations included the presence/absence of noise, the type of phonological overlap in target–competitorpairs, and the number of syllables.Having controlled for age-related differences in word recognition accuracy (by tailoring noise levels), similar online processing profiles were found for younger and older adults when targets were discriminated from competitors that shared onset sounds. Age-related differences were found when target words were differentiated from rhyming competitors and were more extensive in noise.Real-time spoken word recognition processes appear similar for younger and older adults in most conditions; however, age-related differences may be found in the discrimination of rhyming words (especially in noise), even when there are no age differences in word recognition accuracy.

Featured in Newsletter #058 100 Years for Ageism to Fail.

Patterns of Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes III: Long-Term Change in Gender Stereotypes

Tessa E. S. Charlesworth and Mahzarin R. Banaji

Social Psychological and Personality Science 1-13 2021

Gender stereotypes are widely shared “collective representations” that link gender groups (e.g., male/female) with roles or attributes (e.g., career/family, science/arts). Such collective stereotypes, especially implicit stereotypes, are assumed to be so deeply embedded in society that they are resistant to change. Yet over the past several decades, shifts in real-world gender roles suggest the possibility that gender stereotypes may also have changed alongside such shifts. The current project tests the patterns of recent gender stereotype change using a decade (2007–2018) of continuously collected data from 1.4 million implicit and explicit tests of gender stereotypes (male-science/female-arts, male-career/female-family). Time series analyses revealed that, over just 10 years, both implicit and explicit male-science/female-arts and male-career/female-family stereotypes have shifted toward neutrality, weakening by 13%–19%. Furthermore, these trends were observed across nearly all demographic groups and in all geographic regions of the United States and several other countries, indicating worldwide shifts in collective implicit and explicit gender types.

The Relationship of Implicit Social Cognition and Discriminatory Behavior 

Tessa E.S. Charlesworth & Mahzarin R. Banaji

Chapter to appear in Handbook on Economics of Discrimination and Affirmative Action (Ed. Deshpande, A.). 2021

When viewing the state of the world today, social and behavioral scientists face a puzzling inconsistency: how can it be that evidence of discrimination persists in all significant aspects of life, from housing and jobs to healthcare and law enforcement, even though individuals and institutions adamantly stand for equality in treatment? Over the past two decades, research has demonstrated that at least part of the answer to this puzzle can be attributed to the implicit nature of biases – attitudes, beliefs, and identities that are less conscious and controllable but that nevertheless exist and shape behavior. Indeed, today, we take it as given that evidence is strong and substantial for the presence of implicit bias in the minds and behaviors of individuals. This chapter, however, reviews an emerging body of research that uses massive, aggregated data across millions of tests of implicit attitudes and beliefs to understand outcomes of socially significant systemic behaviors ranging from the police use of lethal force to infant healthcare to school suspensions and discipline. Methodologically, the studies quantify social and psychological processes in the real world and introduce data of unprecedented scope across geography and time. Theoretically, this melding of psychological evidence about implicit bias aggregated across millions of individuals alongside large-scale socially significant behaviors underscores a new and more robust meaning of the term systemic discrimination: the results show the various ways that implicit bias both shapes and is shaped by broad structural systems and outcomes.

Implicit Social Cognition

Anthony G. Greenwald and Calvin K. Lai

Annual Review of Psychology 2020. 71:419–45

In the last 20 years, research on implicit social cognition has established that social judgments and behavior are guided by attitudes and stereotypes of which the actor may lack awareness. Research using the methods of implicit social cognition has produced the concept of implicit bias, which has generated wide attention not only in social, clinical, and developmental psychology, but also in disciplines outside of psychology, including business, law, criminal justice, medicine, education, and political science. Although this rapidly growing body of research offers prospects of useful societal applications, the theory needed to confidently guide those applications remains insufficiently developed. This article describes the methods that have been developed, the findings that have been obtained, and the theoretical questions that remain to be answered

November 2022

Featured in Newsletter Number #060 If You Rise I Fall

If you rise, I fall: Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms advantaged groups 

N. Derek Brown, Drew S. Jacoby-Senghor, Isaac Raymundo

Psychological Science 2022

Nine preregistered studies (n = 4197) demonstrate that advantaged group members misperceive equality as necessarily harming their access to resources and inequality as necessarily benefitting them. Only when equality is increased within their ingroup, instead of between groups, do advantaged group members accurately perceive it as unharmful. Misperceptions persist when equality-enhancing policies offer broad benefits to society or when resources, and resource access, are unlimited. A longitudinal survey of the 2020 U.S. voters reveals that harm perceptions predict voting against actual equality-enhancing policies, more so than voters’ political and egalitarian beliefs. Finally two novel-groups experiments experiments reveal that advantaged participants’ harm misperceptions predict voting for inequality-enhancing policies that financially hurt them and against equality-enhancing policies that financially benefit them. Misperceptions persist even after an intervention to improve decision-making. This misperception that equality is necessarily zero-sum may explain why inequality prevails even as it incurs societal costs that harm everyone

Featured in Newsletter #062 The Emotional Labour of the Consumer

"New Vantage Points on Emotional Labor and its Service Context: An Introduction to the Emotional Labor and Service Special Issue."

Fischbach, A.; Schneider, B.

Journal of Service Management Research, 2021,215-228

What makes a good actor? When we go to a play we know why the lead actors got the starring parts. Their ability to inhabit their role means that they stand out. All actors know the script. They learned it before the first rehearsal. Only then can the director start to shape their performance. In the end, there are actors who “go through the motions”. They are called upon to be happy or bored and they do convey the correct facial expressions and movements. They are acting on the surface. The great actors are different. They make the emotions seem real. The can act from deep inside and make us believe that they really are sad, happy, angry etc.

The theatrical analogy for a service experience has a script, scenery and actors. Just like a play. The actors are the front line employees (FLE) and all the consumers. To work the service experience requires everyone to learn the script and to follow it. If they do the consumers will receive a satisfying experience and the operation will run efficiently. This is the idea of the co-production of a service and of the customer being a partial employee. Does the acting analogy go further and require employee and customer to engage their emotions?

Emotional Labour

For a long time organizational behaviour has looked at the emotional work done by employees. According to this idea there are display rules. These come from societal norms and from the “rules” imposed by management. The FLE’s need to express the correct emotion. They must smile and be friendly when they greet you. They must remain calm and detached when shouted at. They must regulate their emotions to act the part.

In the healthcare setting they have to remain happy and cheerful when dealing with harrowing situations. They must deal with the anguish of illness for the patient and their family. Researchers in organizational behaviour have called this “emotional labour”. This is the effort required to regulate internal emotions that do not match the role requirements.

There are two different kinds of employee acting. A surface pretence means smiling whilst you remain angry or sad. It is a veneer. As an actor you have not learned to invoke the emotions within yourself. Deep acting is much closer to the adoption of the role that a great actor can do. All the research suggests that surface acting is much more harmful to the firm and the individual. It causes unhappiness, internal conflict and low job satisfaction for the employee. In turn this leads to employee churn and industrial relations problems for the firm. Deep acting seems to be much less harmful to both. That completely artificial smile of welcome is not a good idea and probably does not fool the customer anyway.

Why do the FLEs behave in this way? There are societal norms about the service experience. No one expects these kinds of interactions to be conducted in anything but a civil way. During COVID 19 some of these rules broke down. The need for FLE’s to impose face mask wearing is not a normal part of the role. It has lead to well reported confrontations and a lot of extra emotional work.

The balance of the display rules comes from the firm. Many multi-site firms have “procedures manuals” that specify the role of the employee. Some specify the emotions as well “Make eye contact with customer and smile”. Display rules often come from the outlet or site manager. It is they that try to create the right “atmosphere” for the customer.

“Do Customers Regulate their Emotions? Development and Validation of a Model of Customer Emotional Labor”.

Imose, R.A.; Rogers, A.P.; Subramony, M.

Journal of Service Management Research,(2021, 241-255

In a recent article the “emotional work” idea was applied to consumers instead of employees. As partial employees we too must play our part. We must follow the mechanics of the script. We must also become emotional actors. The emotional script may not be consistent with how we feel at that moment. Indeed it may not be compatible with how would normally behave. To the extent that creates a gap it requires us to regulate our emotions just as much as the FLE’s. This research also developed a scale for measuring the emotional work of consumers.

Consumer effort in service encounters: the overlooked impact of surface acting

Laurel Aynne Cook, M. Paula Fitzgerald, Raika Sadeghein

Journal of Services Marketing (2022) 297–309

One shift in the retail landscape is the workload transfer from the retailer to the consumer. This study aims to explore consumer perceived effort and the consequences of this workload transfer. – Two scenario-based experiments were conducted. Partial least squares modelling was implemented on the experimental survey data to explore how different dimensions of effort (i.e. mental, physical and emotional) and surface acting contribute to perceptions of effort and value.

Surface acting increases consumer effort perceptions. Consumers’ value perceptions decline as perceived effort increases. Effort perceptions attenuate when consumers have a choice. The paper also brings attention to the shortcomings in the current conceptualization of surface acting and perceived effort, and reconceptualizes effort as a formative construct. This paper cautions marketers about the potential negative implications of shadow work. Service marketers should provide a choice between face-to-face (F2F) and self-service technologies whenever possible. In addition, marketers should develop and implement strategies for reducing consumer surface acting. This study includes an extended conceptualization and new operationalization of consumer surface acting, revised thinking about measuring consumer effort and a unique approach to accounting for effort perceptions of traditional F2F service vs SST.

Featured in Newsletter #065 The Japanese Herbivores

Trends in heterosexual inexperience among young adults in Japan: analysis of national surveys, 1987–2015

Cyrus Ghaznavi , Haruka Sakamoto , Daisuke Yoneoka , Shuhei Nomura , Kenji Shibuya and Peter Ueda 

BMC Public Health (2019) 19:355

It has been suggested that an increasing number of Japanese adults remain sexually inexperienced; however, no study has assessed this issue using nationally representative data. We used data from seven rounds of the National Fertility Survey of Japan, 1987–2015, and included adults aged 18–39 years (18–34 years in the 1987 survey) in the analyses (sample size 11,553–17,850 [1987–2010]; response rate 70.0–92.5%).

The proportion of young Japanese adults with no experience of heterosexual intercourse had increased in the past two decades. Among adults in their thirties, around one in ten had no heterosexual experience. Unemployment, temporary/part-time employment and low income were associated with heterosexual inexperience among men. Further research is needed on the factors contributing to and the potential public health and demographic implications of the high proportion of the Japanese population that remains sexually inexperienced well into adult age.

Featured in Newsletter # 066: “250 Years of Ageism” 

Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions ofDigitized Books 

Jean-Baptiste Michel et al

Science (2011) 176-182

We constructed a corpus of digitized texts containingabout 4% of all books ever printed. Analysis of this corpus enables us to
investigate cultural trends quantitatively. We survey the vast terrain of culturomics,' focusing on linguistic and cultural phenomena that were reflected in the English language between 1800 and 2000. We show how this approach can provide insights about fields as diverse as lexicography, the evolution of grammar, collective memory, the adoption of technology, the pursuit of fame, censorship, and historical epidemiology. Culturomics extends the boundaries of rigorous quantitative inquiry to a wide array of new phenomena spanning the social sciences and the humanities

Increasing Negativity of Age Stereotypes across 200 Years: Evidence from a Database of 400 Million Words 

Reuben Ng, Heather G. Allore, Mark Trentalange, JoanK. Monin, Becca R. Levy

PLoS ONE 10(2): e0117086. (2015)  

Scholars argue about whether age stereotypes (beliefsabout old people) are becoming more negative or positive over time. No previous study has systematically tested the trend of age stereotypes over more than 20 years, due to lack of suitable data. Our aim was to fill this gap by investigating whether age stereotypes have changed over the last two centuries and, if so, what may be associated with this change. We hypothesized that age
stereotypes have increased in negativity due, in part, to the increasing medicalization of aging. This study applied computational linguistics to the
recently compiled Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), a database of 400 million words that includes a range of printed sources from 1810 to 2009. After generating a comprehensive list of synonyms for the term elderly for these years from two historical thesauri, we identified 100 collocates (words that co-occurred most frequently with these synonyms) for each of the 20 decades. Inclusion criteria for the collocates were: (1) appeared within four words of the elderly synonym, (2) referred to an old person, and (3) had a stronger association with the elderly synonym than other words appearing in the database for that decade. This yielded 13,100 collocates that were rated for negativity and medicalization. We found that age stereotypes have become more negative in a linear way over 200 years. In 1880, age stereotypes switched from being positive to being negative. In addition, support was found for two potential explanations. Medicalization of aging and the growing proportion of the population over the age of 65 were both significantly associated with the increase in negative age stereotypes. The upward trajectory of age-stereotype negativity makes a case for remedial action on a societal level.

Aging Narratives Over 210 Years (1810–2019) 

Reuben Ng and Ting Yu Joanne Chow

Journals of Gerontology: SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2021, Vol.76, No. 9

The World Health Organization launched arecent global campaign to combat ageism, citing its ubiquity and insidious threat to health. The historical context that promoted this pernicious threat is understudied, and such studies lay the critical foundation for designing societal-level campaigns to combat it. We analyzed the trend and content ofaging narratives over 210 years across multiple genres—newspaper, magazines, fiction, nonfiction books—and modeled the predictors of the observed trend. Method: A 600-million-word dataset was created from the Corpus of Historical American English and the Corpus of Contemporary American English to
form the largest structured historical corpus with over 150,000 texts from multiple genres. Computational linguistics and statistical techniques were applied to study the trend, content, and predictors of aging narratives.

Aging narratives have become more negative, in a linear fashion (p = .003), over 210 years. There are distinct shifts: From uplifting narratives of heroism and kinship in the 1800s to darker tones of illness, death, and burden in the 1900s across newspapers, magazines, and nonfiction books. Fiction defied this trend by portraying older adults positively through romantic courtship and war heroism. Significant predictors of ageism over 210 years are the medicalization of aging, loss of status, warmth, competence, and social ostracism.

Though it is unrealistic to reverse the course of ageism, its declining trajectory can be ameliorated. Our unprecedented study
lay the groundwork for a societal-level campaign to tackle ageism. The need to act is more pressing given the Covid-19 pandemic where older adults are constantly portrayed as vulnerable.

Featured in Newsletter #071 " Service Failures and the Older Consumers

Elderly customers’ reactions to service failures: the roleof future time perspective, wisdom and emotional intelligence 

Walid Chaouali , Nizar Souiden, Christian Ringle

Journal of Services Marketing 2021 35/1, 65-77

Considering the scant scholarly research on elderlycustomers’ behaviours, this study aims to investigate elderly customers’
reactions to service failure. Additionally, it takes into account customers’
emotions and abilities to cope with stressful situations and achieve successful
problem-solving complaining. In particular, future time perspective, wisdom and
emotional intelligence were examined to delineate their impacts on the
elderly’s responses to service failures.

Data were collected in a French city through mall-interceptinterviewing. In total, 240 respondents participated, based on their
retrospective service failure experience. PLS-SEM was used to analyze the data.
Both wisdom and emotional intelligence were found to directly and positively
impact problem-solving complaining. Future time perspective, however, only had
an indirect effect on problem-solving complaining through wisdom and emotional
intelligence. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to
shed some light on how elderly customers constructively react to service
failures. To this end, it uses future time perspective, wisdom and emotional
intelligence, as well as their interrelationships, to explain elderly
customers’ problem-solving complaining.

Featured in Newsletter Number #075 The Most Used psychoactive Stimulant in the World

Caffeine’s Effects on Consumer Spending

Dipayan Biswas, Patrick Hartmann, Martin Eisend, Courtney Szocs, Bruna Jochims, Vanessa Apaolaza, Erik Hermann, Cristina M. López, Adilson Borges.

Journal of Marketing 2022

Caffeine is the world’s most popular stimulant and is consumed daily by a significant portion of the world’s population through coffee, tea, soda, and energy drinks. Consumers often shop online and in physical stores immediately after or while consuming caffeine. This is further facilitated by the increasing prevalence of coffee shops and also with some retail stores having in-store coffee bars and offering complimentary caffeinated beverages. This research examines how caffeine consumption before shopping influences purchase behavior. The results of a series of experiments conducted in the field (at multiple retail stores across different countries) and in the lab show that consuming a caffeinated (vs. non-caffeinated) beverage before shopping enhances impulsivity in terms of higher number of items purchased and higher spending. This effect is stronger for “high hedonic” products and attenuated for “low hedonic” products. These findings are important for managers to understand how a seemingly unrelated behavior (i.e., caffeine consumption) in and/or around the store affects spending. From a consumer perspective, while moderate amounts of caffeine consumption have positive health benefits, there can be unintended negative financial consequences of caffeine intake on spending. Hence, consumers trying to control impulsive spending should avoid consuming caffeinated beverages before shopping.

Featured in Newsletter #076 Too Hot to Think

Influence of Warm Versus Cool Temperatures on Consumer Choice: A Resource Depletion Account

Amar Cheema, Vanessa M. Patrick.

Journal of Marketing Research 2012 , 984-995

Across five studies, the authors demonstrate that warm (vs. cool) temperatures deplete resources, increase System 1 processing, and influence performance on complex choice tasks. Real-world lottery data (pilot study) and a lab experiment (Study 1) demonstrate the effect of temperature on complex choices: People are less likely to make difficult gambles in warmer temperatures. Study 2 implicates resource depletion as the underlying process; warm temperatures lower cognitive performance for nondepleted people but do not affect the performance of depleted people. Study 3 illustrates the moderating role of task complexity to show that warm temperatures are depleting and decrease willingness to make a difficult product choice. Study 4 juxtaposes the effects of depletion and temperature to reveal that warm temperatures hamper performance on complex tasks because of the participants' increased reliance on System 1 (heuristic) processes.

Warm Hearts and Cool Heads: Uncomfortable Temperature Influences Reliance on Affect in Decision-Making 

Rhonda Hadi, Lauren Block

JACR 2019, 104-114

Can uncomfortable temperature exposure systematically influence consumers’ reliance on affect in decision-making? Using a thermoregulatory framework in which individuals are motivated to maintain thermal com[1]fort, we propose that individuals instinctively adopt a more (less) affective decision-making style in response to uncomfortable physical cold (warmth). We demonstrate that the adoption of an affective decision-making style makes individuals feel warmer (study 1) and more comfortable in response to uncomfortably cold temperature (study 2). Accordingly, individuals spontaneously rely more or less on affect when feeling uncomfortably cold or warm, respectively (study 3), which ultimately influences consequential downstream variables (e.g., willingness to pay; studies 4 and 5). This effect holds in response to both tactile (studies 3 and 4) and ambient (study 5) temperature exposure and is most exaggerated at extreme temperatures (when thermoregulatory objectives are at their strongest)

Featured in Newsletter #077 Baby Its Cold Outside

Warm It Up with Love: The Effect of Physical Coldness on Liking of Romance Movies

Jiewen Hong, Yacheng Sun.

Journal of Consumer Research, 2012, 293-306

Are romance movies more desirable when people are cold? Building on research on (bodily) feeling-as-information and embodied cognition, we hypothesize that physical coldness activates a need for psychological warmth, which in turn leads to an increased liking for romance movies. Four laboratory experiments and an analysis of online movie rental data provide support for our hypothesis. Specifically, studies 1A and 1B show that physical coldness increases the liking of and willingness to pay for romance movies. Study 2 shows that the effect of physical coldness on liking of romance movies only occurs for people who associate romance movies with psychological warmth. Study 3 shows that people correct for the influence of physical coldness on their liking of romance movies when physical coldness is made salient. In study 4, using data on online movie rentals and historical temperature, we found a negative relationship between weather temperature and preference for romance movies. 

The Thermometer of Social Relations Mapping Social Proximity on Temperature 

Hans IJzerman and Giin R. Semin

Psychological Science , October 2009, Vol. 20, No. 10 (October 2009), pp. 1214-1120

"Holding warmfeelings toward someone " and "giving someone the cold shoulder" i ndicate different levels of social proximity. In this article, we show effects of temperature that go beyond these metaphors people live by. In three experiments, warmer conditions, compared with colder conditions, induced (a) greater social proximity, (b) use of more concrete language, and (c) a more relational focus. Different temperature conditions were created by either handing participants warm or cold beverages (Experiment 1) or placing them in
comfortable warm or cold ambient conditions (Experiments 2 and 3). These studies corroborate recent findings in the field of grounded cognition revealing that concrete experiences ground abstract concepts with which they are co-experienced. Our studies show a systemic interdependence among language, perception, and social proximity: Environmentally induced conditions shape not only language use, but also the perception and construal of social relationships

Featured in Newsletter #080 Too Many Gorillas 

Out of Touch? Visual Load Induces Inattentional Numbness

Sandra Murphy andPolly Dalton

Journal of Experimental Psychology:Human Perception and Performance 2016, Vol. 42, No. 6, 761–765

It is now well known that the absence of attention can leavepeople unaware of both visual and auditory stimuli (e.g., Dalton &
Fraenkel, 2012; Mack & Rock, 1998). However, the possibility of similar effects within the tactile domain has received much less research. Here, we introduce a new tactile inattention paradigm and use it to test whether tactile awareness depends on the level of perceptual load in a concurrent visual task. Participants performed a visual search task of either low or high perceptual load, as well as responding to the presence or absence of a brief vibration delivered simultaneously to either the left or the right hand (50% of trials). Detection sensitivity to the clearly noticeable tactile stimulus was reduced under high (vs. low) visual perceptual load. These findings provide the first robust
demonstration of “inattentional numbness,” as well as demonstrating that this phenomenon can be induced by concurrent visual perceptual load.

Extending the study of visual attention to a multisensoryworld (Charles W. Eriksen Special Issue)

Charles Spence

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics (2021) 83:763–775

Charles W. Eriksen (1923–2018), long-time editor ofPerception & Psychophysics (1971–1993) – the precursor to the present
journal – undoubtedly made a profound contribution to the study of selective attention in the visual modality. Working primarily with neurologically normal adults, his early research provided both theoretical accounts for behavioral phenomena as well as robust experimental tasks, including the well-known Eriksen flanker task. The latter paradigm has been used and adapted by many
researchers over the subsequent decades. While Eriksen’s research interests were primarily focused on situations of unimodal visual spatially selective attention, here I review evidence from those studies that have attempted to extend Eriksen’s general approach to non-visual (i.e., auditory and tactile) selection and the more realistic situations of multisensory spatial attentional
selection.

Featured in #081 Everyday Ageism 

Experiences of Everyday Ageism and the Health of Older US Adults

Julie Ober Allen, Erica Solway, Matthias Kirch,Dianne Singer, Jeffrey T. Kullgren,Valerie Moïse, Preeti N. Malani

JAMA Network Open. 2022;5(6):e2217240. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.17240

Major incidents of ageism have been shown to be associated with poorer health and well-being among older adults. Less is known about routine types of age-based discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping that older adults encounter in their day-to-day lives, known as everyday ageism.The objective was to examine the prevalence of everyday ageism, group differences and disparities, and associations of everyday ageism with indicators of poor physical and mental health. This cross-sectional study was conducted using survey data from the December 2019 National Poll on Healthy Aging among a nationally representative household sample of US adults aged 50 to 80 years. Everyday ageism was prevalent (93.4%), experienced at differing levels by population sociodemographic characteristic, and associated with multiple indicators of poor physical and mental health. These findings suggest that everyday ageism may warrant further attention and prioritization as a topic for additional research and as a preventable potential health hazard as people age.

The Everyday Ageism Scale: Developmentand EvaluationJulie Ober Allen, Erica Solway, Matthias Kirch, Dianne Singer, Jeffrey T. Kullgren, and Preeti N. Malani,

Journal of Aging and Health 2022, 147–157

Older adults regularly encounter age-based discrimination and stereotyping in their day-to-day lives. Whether this type of routine ageism negatively affects their health and well-being is unclear, in part due to the absence of validated scales that comprehensively measure this phenomenon and distinguish it from other sources of everyday discrimination. This study describes the development of a novel scale, the Everyday Ageism Scale, and its psychometric evaluation using a nationally representative sample of US adults age 50–80 from the December 2019 National Poll on Healthy Aging (N = 2012).Exploratory factor analysis indicated a 3-factor structure comprised of ageist messages, ageism in interpersonal interactions, and internalized ageism. The ten-item scale was psychometrically sound and demonstrated good internal reliability. Everyday ageism is a multidimensional construct. Preliminary evaluation of the Everyday Ageism Scale suggests its utility in future studies examining the prevalence of everyday ageism and its relationships with health.

Featured in Newsletter #083 "Technology is anything that was invented after you were born”

How old are you really? Cognitive age in technology acceptance

Se-Joon Hong , Carrie Siu Man Lui , Jungpil Hahn , Jae Yun Moon , Tai Gyu Kim

With increasing trends toward global aging and accompanying tendencies of (older) individuals to feel younger than they actually are, an important research question to ask is whether factors influencing IT acceptance are the same across individuals who perceive themselves to be as old as they actually are (i.e., cognitive age = chronological age) and those that perceive themselves to be younger than they actually are (i.e., cognitive age less than chronological age). We conduct an empirical analysis comparing these two groups in the context of mobile data services (MDS). Our results show that for the “young at heart,” perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment play significant roles in their IT acceptance decisions, whereas for those who perceive themselves to be as old as they actually are, perceived ease of use and subjective norms were significant. Practical implications regarding use of cognitive age as a basis for customer segmentation in IT industries as well as theoretical implications about meaningful age in human computer interaction research are offered and discussed.

Decision Support Systems (2013), 122-130

November 2022

Aging and the preference for the human touch 

Wu, R.; Liu, M.; Kardes,F.

Journal of Services Marketing, (2021), 29-40

November 2022

This paper aims to investigate the effect of chronological age on the likelihood to choose a service provider with technological machines versus humans in the context of services. Design/methodology/approach – Two experimental studies were used to collect data. In both experiments, scripts were devised to depict a food ordering situation. The studies, each of which represents two between-subject conditions, were presented to a total of 312 participants. The results of studies show that as age increases, consumers show a higher visit likelihood with human servers as compared to self-ordering machines. This effect emerges because as age increases, people find it more comfortable and convenient to order from human servers. Nevertheless, when a self-ordering machine is the only option, older and younger people find it equally comfortable and convenient. This research indicates that as age increases, consumers tend to choose human servers. However, age does not impact willingness to use technology when human service is not available. A limitation of our research is that we look at food ordering contexts only. Another limitation is that most participants were between 18 and 60 years of age. Practical implications – With a better understanding of the effect of age on preference for service types and the reason behind it, this research helps implement and manage service technologies that may elicit favorable judgments and decisions from consumers. Originality/value – It demonstrates how, when and why age affects the intention to visit service providers that adopt self-service technologies. This research suggests that as age increases, consumers like human service better, but they do not resist self-service technology. 

Do older adults underestimate their actual computer knowledge? 

J. C. MARQUIEÂ , L. JOURDAN-BODDAERT and N. HUET

Behaviour and Information Technology (2002), 273-280

November 2022

This work examined the hypothesis that elderly people are less confident than young people in their own computer knowledge. This was done by having 49 young (M= 22.6 years) and 42 older (M=68.6 years) participants to assess their global self-efficacy beliefs and to make item-by-item prospective (feeling-of-knowing: FOK) and retrospective (confidence level: CL) judgments about their knowledge in the two domains of computers and general knowledge. The latter served as a control domain. Item diffculty was equated across age groups in each domain. In spite of this age equivalence in actual performance, differences were found in FOK and CL ratings for computers but not for general knowledge, with older people being less confident than young people in their own computer knowledge. The greater age difference in ratings observed in the computer domain, as compared with the general domain, was even greater for the FOK than for the CL judgments. Statistical control of age differences in global self-efficacy beliefs in the computer domain (poorer in the older participants, but not in the general domain), eliminated age differences in FOK and CL judgments in the same domain. These findings confirm earlier ones. They suggest that under confidence in their relevant abilities is one possible source of the difficulties that the elderly may encounter in mastering new computer technologies

Featured in Newsletter #087 Christmas Parties

The Cocktail Party Phenomenon Revisited: How Frequent Are Attention Shifts to One's Name in an Irrelevant Auditory Channel?

Noelle Wood and Nelson Cowan

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, andCognition 1995, Vol. 21, No. 1,255-260

Moray's (1959) well-known study of the "cocktail partyphenomenon" suggested that participants sometimes notice their name
embedded in an ignored auditory channel. However, the empirical finding was preliminary in nature and never has been directly replicated. This was done with improved methodological controls, and the relationship between on-line attention shifts to one's name and ubsequent recollection of the name in a sample of 34 undergraduates was examined. Similar to N. Moray, only 34.6% of the participants recalled hearing their name in the channel to be ignored. Only those participants showed on-line evidence of attention shifts, and those
shifts occurred only for the two items following the name. The results suggest that participants who detected their name monitored the irrelevant channel for a short time afterward

A Preregistered Replication and Extension of the CocktailParty Phenomenon: One’s Name Captures Attention, Unexpected Words Do Not 

Jan Philipp , Nelson Cowan

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, andCognition 2021, Vol. 47, No. 2, 234 –242

In the cocktail party phenomenon, participants cannot attendto more than 1 stream of information, but sometimes detect their own name being presented in the irrelevant message during a selective listening task. Here we present a preregistered replication of the henomenon, in which we also tested whether semantically unexpected words have a similar effect and whether individual differences in working memory capacity as measured by the operation and running-span tasks are related to the ability to detect one’s own name or unexpected words in the irrelevant message. Twenty-nine percent of the participants reported noticing their own name, and those who did made more
errors on relevant, to-be-shadowed words presented around the time of the name. Low-span participants were more likely than high-span participants to notice their names and to commit shadowing errors concurrently to the presentation of the name or shortly after. In contrast, semantically unexpected words were rarely detected, nor were they associated with shadowing errors in the relevant
message. Our results demonstrate once again that highly relevant stimuli such as one’s own name are capable of attracting and capturing attention for a short period of time. Our results also demonstrate that unexpected words within sentences do not belong to this category of stimuli.

Older Adults at the Cocktail Party

M. KathleenPichora-Fuller, Claude Alain, and Bruce A. Schneider

Chapter 9 J.C.Middlebrooks et al. (eds.), The Auditory System at the Cocktail Party, Springer
Handbook of Auditory Research

Successful communication and navigation in cocktail partysituations depends on complex interactions among an individual’s sensory,
cognitive, and social abilities. Older adults may function well in relatively ideal communication situations, but they are notorious for their difficulties understanding speech in noisy situations such as cocktail parties. However, as healthy adults age, declines in auditory and cognitive processing may be offset by compensatory gains in ability to use context and knowledge. From a practical perspective, it is important to consider the aging auditory system in multi-talker situations because these are among the most challenging situations for older adults. From a theoretical perspective, studying age-related changes in auditory processing provides a special window into the relative contributions of, and interactions among sensory, cognitive, and social abilities. In the acoustical wild, younger listeners typically function better than older listeners. Experimental evidence indicates that age-related differences in simple measures such as word recognition in quiet or noise are largely due to the bottom-up effects of age-related auditory declines. These differences can
often be eliminated when auditory input is adjusted to equate the performance levels of listeners on baseline measures in quiet or noise. Notably, older adults exhibit enhanced cognitive compensation, with performance on auditory tasks being facilitated by top-down use of context and knowledge. Nevertheless, age-related differences can persist when tasks are more cognitively demanding and involve discourse comprehension, memory, and attention. At an extreme, older adults with hearing loss are at greater risk for developing cognitive
impairments than peers with better hearing.

Featured in Newsletter #090 Happy Christmas 

On the Promotion of Human Flourishing

Tyler J. VanderWeele

148–8156 | PNAS | August 1, 2017 | vol. 114 | no. 31

Many empirical studies throughout the social and biomedicalsciences focus only on very narrow outcomes such as income, or a single
specific disease state, or a measure of positive affect. Human well-being or flourishing, however, consists in a much broader range of states and outcomes, certainly including mental and physical health, but also encompassing happiness and life satisfaction, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships. The empirical literature from longitudinal, experimental, and quasi experimental studies is reviewed in attempt to identify major determinants of human flourishing, broadly conceived. Measures of human
flourishing are proposed. Discussion is given to the implications of a broader conception of human flourishing, and of the research reviewed, for policy, for future research in the biomedical andsocial sciences

Ways to Greater Happiness: A Delphi Study

Dan Buettner Toben Nelson Ruut Veenhoven

Journal of Happiness Studies (2020) 21:2789–2806

In the first round of this Delphi study 14 experts suggestedstrategies for improving life-satisfaction. In a second round, experts rated
these strategies for (a) effectiveness, (b) feasibility and (c) cost-effectiveness. They considered 56 strategies policy makers can use to raise average happiness in a nation and 68 ways in which individuals can raise their own happiness. Experts were informed about the average ratings made by the panel and about the arguments advanced. Then, in a third round, experts made their final judgments. Summed ratings for average effectiveness and feasibility of the strategies ranged between 8.4 and 4.9 on scale 2–10, which means that most of the
recommendations were deemed suitable. Agreement was slightly higher on policy strategies than on individual ways to greater happiness. Policy strategies deemed the most effective and feasible are: (1) investing in happiness research, (2) support of vulnerable people and (3) improving the social climate, in particular by promoting voluntary work and supporting non-profits. Individual strategies deemed most effective are: (a) investing in social networks, (b) doing meaningful things

February 2023

Featured in #092 Overcoming Ageism at All Ages  

The Social Separation of Old and Young: A Root of Ageism  

G. O. Hagestad∗ and P Uhlenberg

Journal of Social Issues, 2005, pp. 343--360

Ageism has been the focus of numerous publications, whileage segregation is a neglected topic. Ageism on a micro-individual level is
linked to segregation on a macro level in a segregation-ageism cycle. Possible linking mechanisms, which might help break this cycle, can be found on a meso level of social networks—their structure and functions. Data from the United States and the Netherlands show that non-family networks are strongly age homogeneous. Based on earlier work by a range of scholars, we suggest that
time, group identity, perspective-taking, and affective ties are factors that must be considered with regard to the functions of networks. Addressing meso level mechanisms poses challenges to social policy

“Financial Issues Top the List of Reasons U.S. Adults Live in Multigenerational Homes”

Pew Research Center, March 2022

Nearly four-in-ten young men ages 25 to 29 now live with older relatives. Multigenerational living has grown sharply in the U.S. overthe past five decades and shows no sign of peaking. When asked why they share their home with relatives, Americans often give practical reasons related to finances or family caregiving. But the experience also has an emotional component. About a quarter of adults in multigenerational homes say it is stressful all or most of the time, and more than twice that share say it is mostly or always

Ageism in the era of digital platforms 

Andrea Rosales , Mireia Fernandez-Ardevol

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into NewMedia Technologies 2020, 1074–1087

Ageism is the most invisible form of discrimination.While there is some awareness of gender, racial, and socioeconomic
discrimination on digital platforms, ageism has received less attention. This article analyzes some tools that are frequently embedded on digital platforms from an old-age perspective, in order to increase awareness of the different ways in which ageism works. We will firstly look at how innovation teams, following homophilic patterns, disregard older people. Secondly, we will show how ageism tends to be amplified by the methods often used on digital platforms. And thirdly, we will show how corporate values contradict the usability issues that mainly affect people with a low level of (digital) skills, which is more common among older people. Counterbalancing the abusive
power control of the corporations behind digital platforms and compensating for the underrepresentation of groups in less favorable situations could help to tackle

January 2023

Featured in Newsletter #094 Distracted Eating

The Impact of Crowding on Calorie Consumption

STEFAN J. HOCK,RAJESH BAGCHI

Journal of Consumer Research, 2018, 1123-1140

Consumer behavior is often influenced by subtleenvironmental cues, such as temperature, color, lighting, scent, or sound. We explore the effects of a not-so[1]subtle cue—humancrowding—on calorie consumption. Although crowding is an omnipresent factor, it has received little attention in the marketing literature. We present six studies showing that crowding increases calorie consumption. These effects occur because crowding increases distraction, which hampers cognitive thinking and evokes more affective processing. When consumers process information affectively, they consume more calories. We show the specific reason for the increase in calories. When given a choice between several different options, people select and eat higher-calorie items, but when presented with only one option, people eat more of the same food item. We document this process, rule out alternative explanations, and discuss theoretical and managerial implications

Watching television while eating increases energy intake.Examining the mechanisms in female participants

Lucy Braude, RichardJ. Stevenson

Appetite (2014), 9-16

Watching television (TV) while eating tends to increase foodintake, but why this occurs is not well understood. Here, we examined TV’s
effects on sensory specific satiety (SSS), introception (i.e., hunger/ fullness), mood and other variables, in females who all ate one snack meal with TV and another without TV. To manipulate the development of SSS, participants were assigned either to a group receiving a single type of snack food or one receiving four types. Everyone ate more with TV. More food items were eaten in the group offered multiple snack types. In the group eating a single snack type with TV, hedonic ratings indicated that SSS did not develop and this was associated with greater food intake. Irrespective of group, more food had to be consumed to generate the same shift in hunger/fullness when eating with TV, relative to no TV. TV exerted less effect on food intake both if it improved mood and if participants were unfamiliar with the TV show, and a greater effect if participants were frequent TV viewers. We suggest that TV can affect several processes that normally assist the voluntary regulation of food intake

Featured in Newsletter #095 Loneliness 

The Rise of Japan’s Super Solo Culture.

Bryan Lufkin

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200113-the-rise-of-japans-super-solo-culture 

From cocktails to karaoke, more Japanese people are going it alone. What's causing the huge change in the traditionally group-oriented country?
 

Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors forMortality: A Meta-Analytic Review 

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, Mark Baker, TylerHarris, and David Stephenson

Perspectives on Psychological Science 2015,Vol. 10(2) 227-237 

Actual and perceived social isolation are both associatedwith increased risk for early mortality. In this meta-analytic review, our
objective is to establish the overall and relative magnitude of social isolation and loneliness and to examine possible moderators. We conducted a literature search of studies (January 1980 to February 2014) using MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Social Work Abstracts, and Google Scholar. The included studies provided quantitative data on mortality as affected by loneliness, social isolation, or living alone. Across studies in which several possible confounds were statistically controlled for, the weighted average effect sizes were as follows: social isolation odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, loneliness OR = 1.26, and living alone OR = 1.32, corresponding to an average of 29%, 26%, and 32%
increased likelihood of mortality, respectively. We found no differences between measures of objective and subjective social isolation. Results remain consistent across gender, length of follow-up, and world region, but initial health status has an influence on the findings. Results also differ across participant age, with social deficits being more predictive of death in samples with an average age younger than 65 years. Overall, the influence of both objective and subjective social isolation on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.

The Major Health Implications of Social Connection

Julianne Holt-Lunstad

Current Directions in Psychological Science 2021, Vol. 30(3)251–259

The influence of social relationships extends beyondemotional well-being to influence long-term physical-health outcomes, including
mortality risk. Despite the varied measurement approaches used to examine social relationships within the health literature, the data can be synthesized using social connection as an organizing framework. This review discusses cumulative scientific evidence of links between various aspects of social connection and mortality, as well as supporting evidence for links with morbidity and plausible mechanisms. This evidence fulfills the criteria outlined in the Bradford Hill guidelines for establishing causality. Despite strong evidence currently available, several gaps remain and will need to be addressed if society is to rise to the challenge of developing effective interventions to reduce risk associated with social disconnection. This evidence has important broader implications for medical practice and public health.

Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults:Opportunities for the Health Care System (2020)

National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine

National Academies Press 2020

Featured in Newsletter #096 Will the Old Inherit the Metaverse?

Review of Cybersickness in applications and visual displays

Rebenitsch, L; Owen, C.

Virtual reality, 2016. 101-125

Cybersickness is an affliction common to users ofvirtual environments. Similar in symptoms to motion sickness, cybersickness can
result in nausea, headaches, and dizziness. With these systems becoming readily available to the general public, reports of cybersickness have increased and there is a growing concern about the safety of these systems. This review presents the current state of research methods, theories, and known aspects associated with cybersickness. Current measurements of incidence of
cybersickness are questionnaires, postural sway, and physiological state.

Varying effects due to displayand rendering modes, such as visual display type and stereoscopic or mesoscopic rendering, are compared. The known and suspected application aspects that induce cybersickness are discussed. There are numerous potential contributing application design aspects, many of which have had limited study, but field of view and navigation are strongly correlated with cybersickness. The effect of visual displays is not well understood, and application design may be of greater importance.

Factors Associated With Virtual Reality Sickness in Head-Mounted Displays: A Systematic Review and
Meta-Analysis

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2020

Dimitrios Saredakis , Ancret Szpak, Brandon Birckhead, Hannah A. D. Keage, Albert Rizzo and Tobias Loetscher

The use of head-mounted displays (HMD) for virtualreality (VR) application-based purposes including therapy, rehabilitation, and
training is increasing. Despite advancements in VR technologies, many users still experience sickness symptoms. VR sickness may be influenced by technological differences within HMDs such as resolution and refresh rate, however, VR content also plays a significant role. The primary objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to examine the literature on HMDs that report Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) scores to determine the impact of content. User factors associated with VR sickness were also examined.
A systematic search was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. Fifty-five articles met inclusion criteria, representing 3,016 participants (mean age range 19.5–80; 41% female). Findings show gaming content recorded the highest total SSQ mean 34.26 (95%CI 29.57–38.95). VR sickness profiles were also influenced by visual stimulation, locomotion and exposure times. Older samples
(mean age ≥35 years) scored significantly lower total SSQ means than younger samples, however, these findings are based on a small evidence base as a limited number of studies included older users. No sex differences were found. Across all types of content, the pooled total SSQ mean was relatively high 28.00 (95%CI 24.66–31.35) compared with recommended SSQ cut-off scores. These
findings are of relevance for informing future research and the application of VR in different contexts

Ageism in the era of digital platforms

Andrea Rosales, Mireia Fernandez-Ard

Convergence, 2020, 1074-1087

Ageism is the most invisible form of discrimination.While there is some awareness of gender, racial, and socioeconomic
discrimination on digital platforms, ageism has received less attention. This article analyzes some tools that are frequently embedded on digital platforms from an old-age perspective, in order to increase awareness of the different ways in which ageism works. We will firstly look at how innovation teams, following homophilic patterns, disregard older people. Secondly, we will show how ageism tends to be amplified by the methods often used on digital platforms. And thirdly, we will show how corporate values contradict the usability issues that mainly affect people with a low level of (digital) skills, which is more common among older people. Counterbalancing the abusive
power control of the corporations behind digital platforms and compensating for the underrepresentation of groups in less favorable situations could help to tackle such discrimination.

Featured in Newsletter #097 "Elderspeak"

Understanding Elderspeak: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis

Clarissa A. Shaw, Jean K. Gordon

Innovation in Ageing, 2021, 5/3. pp1-18

Elderspeak is an inappropriate simplified speech registerthat sounds like baby talk and is used with older adults, especially in health
care settings. Understanding the concept of elderspeak is challenging due to varying views about which communicative components constitute elderspeak and whether elderspeak is beneficial or harmful for older adults.

Rodgers’ evolutionary concept analysis method was used toevaluate the concept of elderspeak through identification of elderspeak’s
attributes, antecedents, and consequences. A systematic search of databases was completed. Elderspeak characteristics were categorized by semantic, syntactic, pragmatic, paralinguistic, and nonverbal attributes. The primary antecedent to elderspeak is implicit ageism, in which old age cues and signs of functional or cognitive impairment led to simplified communication, usually from a younger caregiver. Research studies varied in reporting whether elderspeak facilitated or interfered with comprehension by older adults, in part depending on the operational definition of elderspeak and experimental manipulations. Exaggerated prosody, a key feature of elderspeak, was found to reduce comprehension. Elderspeak was generally perceived as patronizing by older adults and speakers were perceived as less respectful. In persons with dementia, elderspeak also increases the probability of resistiveness to care, which is an important correlate of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia.

Don’t Patronize Me: Responses to patronizing communication and factorsthat attenuate those responses

Hehman, J. A., Bugental, D. B. (2015).

Psychology and Aging, 30(3), 552–560.

The purpose of this study was to investigateyounger and older adults’ responses to patronizing communication in terms of
(a) performance on a cognitive task and (b) physiological responses , as well as factors that may attenuate those responses. Participants were randomly assigned to receive instructions for the task using either a patronizing or nonpatronizing speech style. Participants
also completed a measure of attitudes about aging and the quantity/quality of their intergenerational interaction.

Older adults (relative to younger adults) were found to be more reactive to the patronizing speech style in terms of their
performance on the task as well as the change in their cortisol levels. Older adults who had more positive attitudes about aging as well as more positive intergenerational interactions were protected from the performance deficits as
a result of patronizing speech style.

 
Featured in Newsletter #098 "The Friend Within"

Subliminal Strengthening: Improving Older Individuals Physical Function Over Time with Implicit Aging Stereotype Interventions

Becca Levy, Corey Pilver, Pil Chung, Martin Slade

Psychological Science, 2014, 25/12, pp 2127-2155

Negative age stereotypes that older individuals assimilatefrom their culture predict detrimental outcomes, including worse physical
function. We examined, for the first time, whether positive age stereotypes, presented subliminally across multiple sessions in the community, would lead to improved outcomes. Each of 100 older individuals was randomly assigned to an implicit-positive-age-stereotype-intervention group, an explicit-positive age-stereotype-intervention group, a combined implicit- and explicit-positive-age-stereotype-intervention group, or a control group. Interventions occurred at four 1-week intervals. The implicit intervention strengthened positive age stereotypes, which strengthened positive self-perceptions of aging, which, in turn, improved physical function. The
improvement in these outcomes continued for 3 weeks after the last intervention session. Further, negative age stereotypes and negative self-perceptions of aging were weakened. For all outcomes, the implicit intervention's impact was greater than the explicit intervention's impact. The physical-function effect of the implicit intervention surpassed a previous study's 6-month-exercise-intervention's effect with participants of similar ages. The current study's findings demonstrate the potential of directing implicit processes toward physical-function enhance.

Do Negative Views of Aging Influence Memory and Auditory Performance Through Self-Perceived Abilities?

Alison L. Chasteen, M. Kathleen Pichora-Fuller, SherriSmith, James H. Quillen Gurjit Singh.

Psychology and Ageing, 2015, 30/4 881-893

Memory and hearing are critical domains that interact duringolder adults’ daily communication and social encounters. To develop a more
comprehensive picture of how aging influences performance in these domains, the roles of social variables such as views of aging and self-perceived abilities need greater examination. The present study investigates the linkages between views of aging, self-perceived abilities, and performance within and across the domains of memory and hearing, connections that have never been examined together within the same sample of older adults.

For both domains, older adults completed measures of theirviews of aging, their self-perceived abilities and behavioural tests. Using
structural equation modelling, we tested a hypothesized model in which older adults’ negative views of aging predicted their performance in the domains of memory and hearing through negatively affecting their self-perceived abilities in those domains. Although this model achieved adequate fit, an alternative model in which hearing performance predicted self-perceived hearing also was supported. Both models indicate that hearing influences memory with respect to both behavioural and self-perception measures and that negative views of aging influence self-perceptions in both domains.

Featured in Newsletter #100 "Its Not Fair"

GENERATIONAL WEALTH ACCOUNTS: DID PUBLIC AND PRIVATEINTER-GENERATIONAL TRANSFERS OFFSET EACH OTHER OVER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS?

David McCarthy, JamesSefton, Ronald Lee and Joze Sambt

The Economic Journal, 2022 132.2412-2437

We develop Generational Wealth Accounts (GWA): the first setof balance sheets, by generations, to include all human capital, tangible wealth, financial wealth, and transfer wealth, and the uses to which these are put, and employ them to quantify inter-generational transfers and the sustainability of consumption. Consumption plans in the UK public sector worsened over the financial crisis and are unsustainable; private sector plans improved, and are now almost balanced. Increases in private capital transfers to the young offset the effect of increased public debt. House price increases shifted resources from young to old but had little effect on sustainability. It has often been argued that younger enerations will carry an outsize share of the cost of sustainability

Featured In Newsletter ‘104 “What Happens to All Those Satisfaction Surveys?”

The Customer May Not Always be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance

Buell, R.W.; Campbell,D., Frei,F.X.

Management Science, 67(3)2021 1468-1488

This paper investigates theimpact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the relative importance of customer, employee, process, location, and market-level effects on customer satisfaction. In our models, which explain roughly a quarter of the aggregate variance, differences among customers account for 96-97% of the explainable portion. Further analysis of interaction-level data from banking and quick service restaurants reveals that customers report relatively consistent satisfaction across transactions with particular firms, but that some customers are habitually more satisfied than others. A second set of empirical studies provides evidence that these customer-level differences are explained in part by customer compatibility. Customers whose needs, proxied by differences in demographics and product choices, diverge more starkly from those of their bank’s average customers report significantly lower levels of satisfaction. Consistently, banks that serve customer bases with more dispersed needs receive lower satisfaction scores than banks serving customer bases with less dispersed needs. Finally, a longitudinal analysis of the deposit and loan growth of all federally insured banks in the United States from 2006-2017 reveals that customer compatibility
affects a firm’s financial performance. Branches with more divergent customers grow more slowly than branches with less divergent customers. Institutions serving customer bases with more dispersed needs have branches that exhibit slower growth than those of institutions serving customer bases with less dispersed needs.

Featured in Newsletter #0123 People Don't Take Their Pills Anyway

Medication Adherence: WHO Cares?

Marie T. Brown, and Jennifer K. Bussell

Mayo Clin Proc. 2011;86(4):304-314

The treatment of chronic illnesses commonly includes thelong term use of pharmacotherapy. Although these medications are effective in
combating disease, their full benefits are often not realized because approximately 50% of patients do not take their medications as prescribed. Factors contributing to poor medication adherence are myriad and include those that are related to patients (eg, suboptimal health literacy and lack of involvement in the treatment decision–making process), those that are related to physicians (eg, prescription of complex drug regimens, communication barriers, ineffective communication of information about adverse effects, and provision of care by multiple physicians), and those that are related to health care systems (eg, office visit time limitations, limited access to care, and
lack of health information technology). Because barriers to medication adherence are complex and varied, solutions to improve adherence must be multifactorial. This review surveys the findings and presents various strategies and resources for improving medication adherence.

Adherence to Long Term Therapies: Evidence for Action

World Health Organization 2003

 
Featured in Newsletter #128 Why Delay a First Child?

Childbearing for women born in different years, England andWales: 2020

Statistical bulletin of the UK Office of National Statistics

The changing composition of families over time, comparingthe fertility of women of the same age and the number of children they have
had.

The Wage Growth and Within-Firm Mobility of Men and Women:New Evidence and Theory 

Mary Ann Bronson, Peter Skogman Thoursie

Proceedings of the National Bureau of Economic Research 2021

Why do women’s wages grow more slowly than men’s? UsingSwedish administrative data, we answer this question in three steps. First, we analyze men’s and women’s real annual wage growth non-parametrically. We show that men’s and women’s wage growth distributions differ principally in one aspect: women are less likely than men to experience persistent within-firm wage shocks in the right tail of the wage growth distribution. These shocks move workers up their firm’s wage hierarchy, resemble internal promotions, and play a primary role in driving the gender differences in wage growth. Based on this evidence, in the second step we analyze men’s and women’s within-firm mobility. Using a novel wage-based measure of within-firm mobility, we estimate that gender differences in the probability of experiencing large internal promotions account for around 70% of the total difference in men’s and women’s wage growth by age 45. We quantify the contribution of differences in humancapital characteristics and occupation, sorting across firms, and hours worked
and childbirth to the observed promotion gap. Alongside substantial motherhood penalties, we also document sizable dynamic gender penalties in promotion that are largest early in the lifecycle, reverse after age 40, and are observed both for women who eventually have children and those who remain childless. Lastly, to interpret our findings, we develop a model of promotion dynamics based on
Gibbons and Waldman (1999). We conclude that the key empirical facts about promotion and wage growth are not readily explained by behavioural channels, such as gender differences in competitiveness or propensity to negotiate, but are consistent with costs to firms associated with employee leave-taking associated with childbirth, and employer uncertainty about women’s future childbearing and labour.

Featured in Newsletter #149 Societal Participation

The Capability Approach and the WHO healthy ageing framework(for the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing)

Sridhar Venkatapuram, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan

Age and Ageing 2023; 52: iv6–iv9https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad126

This commentary discusses the WHO definition of healthageing in terms of functional abilities, and the problem definition and evidence-based public health response framework outlined in the 2015 WHO Report on Ageing and Health. After identifying the neglect of older people in health policy at national and global levels, some data are presented on the majority of COVID-19 deaths being older people. The discussion then focuses on the underlying ethical and analytical framework of functional abilities provided by the Capability Approach. The approach is presented as distinguishing between achievement and capability, the ethical significance of recognising both, and its inclusion of surrounding social conditions from local to global in assessing wellbeing of older people’s functional abilities. Measurement of functional abilities, informed by the Capabilities Approach, is stated to be an enormous and crucial task in establishing a global baseline, and making progress in improving the health and wellbeing of older people.

Aging with purpose: Why meaningful engagement with society matters

October 23, 2023

The McKinsey Health Institute analysis shows older adults are happier and healthier when they engage more in
society—and helping them do so could benefit the economy.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/aging-with-purpose-why-meaningful-engagement-with-society-matters

Featured in Newsletter #150 Don't Call Me Old

Who Are You Calling Old? Negotiating Old Age Identity in theElderly Consumption Ensemble

MICHELLE BARNHART LISA PENALOZA

Journal of Consumer Research April 2013, 1133 to 1153

As the elderly population increases, more family, friends,and paid service providers assist them with consumption activities in a group that the authors conceptualize as the elderly consumption ensemble (ECE). Interviews with members of eight ECEs demonstrate consumption in advanced age as a group phenomenon rather than an individual one, provide an account of how the practices and discourses of the ECE’s division of consumption serve as a means of knowing someone is old and positioning him/her as an old subject, and detail strategies through which older consumers negotiate their age identity when it conflicts with this positioning. This research (1) illuminates ways in
which consumer agency in identity construction is constrained in interpersonal interactions, (2) demonstrates old identity as implicated in consumption in relation to and distinction from physiological ability and old subject
position, and (3) updates the final stages of the Family Life Cycle