Greetings!
In this newsletter I share a fantastic, just published study.
-- Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener
Subliminal Strength
You may know about research in "stereotype vulnerability." In a series of studies researchers were able to lower performance simply by activating negative stereotypes. Women students at Stanford, for instance, under performed on math tests when told that "women don't do well on math tests." What about the other side of that coin? Can we increase performance by activating positive stereotypes?
This month the first published study ever on the topic of re-vitalizing the elderly appeared in the journal Psychological Science. In this study 100 adults (average age 81) were assigned to various research conditions, one of which was a positive age stereotype condition. People in this group were asked to write essays about a physically and mentally healthy senior citizen.
As you might imagine one of the biggest results from this study was perceptions of age. Those folks in the positive group were more likely-- far more likely--to see aging as positive. What's more, those perceptions grew in positivity across the weeks.
The real excitement, however, can be seen in the physical consequences of the intervention. The positive aging group improved across the weeks and performed significantly better on tests of balance, walking speed, and ability to rise from a seated position.
It makes you curious, doesn't it? What positive stereotypes might you benefit from?
Robert Biswas-Diener
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