THE YOUNG AND THE RECKLESS: DOES PRIMING AGE STEREOTYPE IN YOUNG ADULTS AFFECT SPEED OR CAUTIOUSNESS?

Research has shown that activating the elderly stereotype alters the performance in several tasks. However, recent difficulties in both replicating and interpreting these results have led to strong criticism among scholars. Here, we report the results of two experiments in which participants were first primed with one stereotype (elderly, young, or control), then they performed a lexical decision task (LDT). We used the Diffusion Model to distinguish between mechanisms that could be altered by priming. Unexpectedly, participants primed with the young stereotype responded faster than participants belonging to both control and elderly primed groups. Moreover, a Diffusion Model analysis allowed us to conclude that participants primed young did not change their response speed per se, but used a less cautious decision criterion. Implications for elderly stereotype priming are discussed since our results question not only the direction of the effect commonly observed but also the interpretation of the processes underlying elderly stereotype priming.