Intergenerational Potential Effects of Social Interaction Between Older Adults and Adolescents

• Published in: Psychology and aging Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 690 - 704
• Main Authors: Kessler, Eva-Marie, Staudinger, Ursula M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-12-2007
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Adult; Adult. Elderly; Aged; Aging; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Developmental psychology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Generativity; Human; Humans; Identity Formation; Intergenerational Relations; Intergenerational relationships; Interpersonal Interaction; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Older people; Prosocial behaviour; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social Behavior; Social Identification; Social interaction; Studies; Teenagers; generativity; collaboration; interactive minds; identity formation; intergenerational relationships; Human; Personal identity; Personality; Personality development; Social interaction; Cooperation; Intergeneration relation; Adolescent; Elderly
• ISSN: 0882-7974; 1939-1498
• DOI: 10.1037/0882-7974.22.4.690

The present study aimed to investigate the potentially facilitative effect of the interaction between older adults and adolescents. For older adults, the interaction was expected to compensate for age-related deficits (e.g., cognitive performance, cognitive-affective complexity). In case of the adolescents, an optimization of development was expected (e.g., prosocial behavior, communion goals). Ninety older women (70-74 years) and 90 adolescent girls (14-15 years) were randomly assigned to 3 experimental conditions. In each of the conditions, nonfamiliar dyads collaborated on 1 task. The conditions varied according to the age composition and the type of contextual demand (high vs. low support of generativity [older adults] and identity formation [adolescents]). Individual performance measures were assessed immediately after the interaction. As expected, intergenerational settings characterized by high support of generativity and identity formation resulted in more prosocial behavior in adolescents. Furthermore, the results lent partial support to the hypothesis that in older adults, this setting facilitated higher complexity of emotion regulation as well as higher levels of performance in measures of speed and word fluency.