Choking under pressure: does it get easier with age? Loneliness affects social monitoring across the lifespan
Pearce, E; Barreto, M; Victor, C; et al.Hammond, C; Eccles, AE; Richins, MT; O'Neal, A; Knowles, ML; Qualter, P
Date: 20 December 2020
Journal
International Journal of Behavioral Development
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Previous experimental work showed that young adults reporting loneliness performed less
well on emotion recognition tasks (Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy [DANVA2]) if they were framed as indicators of social aptitude, but not when the same tasks were
framed as indexing academic aptitude. Such findings suggested that ...
Previous experimental work showed that young adults reporting loneliness performed less
well on emotion recognition tasks (Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy [DANVA2]) if they were framed as indicators of social aptitude, but not when the same tasks were
framed as indexing academic aptitude. Such findings suggested that undergraduates
reporting loneliness possessed the social monitoring skills necessary to read the emotions
underlying others’ facial expressions, but that they choked under social pressure. It has also
been found that undergraduates reporting loneliness have better recall for both positive and
negative social information than their non-lonely counterparts. Whether those effects are
evident across different age groups has not been examined. Using data from the BBC
Loneliness Experiment that included participants ages 16-99 years (N = 54,060) we (i) test
for replication in a larger worldwide sample, and (ii) extend those linear model analyses to
other age groups. We found only effects for participants ages 25-34 years: In this age group,
loneliness was associated with increased recall of negative individual information, and with
choking under social pressure during the emotion recognition task; those effects were
small. We did not find any such effects among participants in other age groups. Our
findings suggest that different cognitive processes may be associated with loneliness in
different age groups, highlighting the importance of life-course approaches in this area.
Psychology - old structure
Collections of Former Colleges
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