AGE AND FORGETFULNESS - CONFIDENCE IN ABILITY AND ATTRIBUTION FOR MEMORY FAILURES

Perceivers read a script of a forgetful young, middle-aged, or older m ale or female target being interviewed for a volunteer position. After ward perceivers rated their opinion of the target's memory, confidence in the target's capability of performing tasks, and attributions for the target's memory failures. Perceivers were more confident and attri buted failures more to lack of effort and attention when targets exper ienced episodic than semantic memory failures. Perceivers' memory opin ion was less negative for older than for young and middle-aged targets , but their confidence ratings were equivalent across target age group s. Perceivers used an age-based double standard in their attribution r atings. However, double-standard evidence was not as strong as in prio r studies using less evaluative contexts.