Age-Related Communicative Experiences and Young Adults’ Representations of Future Selves Versus “Typical” Older Adults

• In Event: Showcasing ICLASP15 Research: Selected Projects From the International Association of Language and Social Psychology

Abstract

This study sought to explore (a) how young adults’ representations of themselves in old age differed from their representations of “typical” 70-year olds, and (b) if and how qualities of these representations were linked to young adults’ experiences of age-related communication. Participants were randomly assigned to write a narrative describing a day in their life when they were 70 years old, or a day in the life of a typical 70-year old. These were analyzed using LIWC 2007 (Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007). Participants also completed several scales regarding their communication and attitudes related to aging. Young adults describing their future selves used a higher proportion of positive emotion words and of words related to achievement, but a lower proportion of social words. Young adults describing a typical 70-year old’s day also used a higher absolute number of negative emotion words. Experiencing nonaccommodation from older adults was related to higher proportions of health-related words and lower proportions of words related to friendship and achievement in descriptions of “typical” 70-year-olds, but not future selves. Collectively, these results are consistent with previous research finding that young adults seem to represent future selves differently than they do “typical” older adults, and indicates that these two types of representations are differentially related to experiences of age-related communication.

Author

• Jessica Gasiorek, U of Hawaii - Manoa