Trait distinctiveness and age specificity in self-referent information processing

Abstract

College students and elderly adults made both self-descriptiveness and other-descriptiveness decisions for the same set of 80 trait adjectives. Half of the adjectives were appropriate descriptors of young adults rather than elderly adults, whereas the remainder were more appropriate as descriptors for elderly adults. Rating each trait twice made it possible to separate the items that were descriptive of both self and others (shared) from those that were descriptive of self only (unshared). Adjective endorsement by young adults showed age specificity for the shared (both) traits, particularly for the likable adjectives, but not for the unique (self-only) traits. The endorsement pattern of elderly adults showed no age specificity for either shared or unshared traits, though the elderly adults did access elderly items faster than young items. © 1990, The psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.