Cross-cultural differences in memory: The role of culture-based stereotypes about aging

The extent o which cultural stereotypes about aging contribute to age differences in memory perfor-mance is investigated by comparing younger and older Anglophone Canadians to demographically matched Chinese Canadians, who tend to hold more positive views of aging. Four memory tests were administered. In contrast to B. Levy and E. Langer's (1994) findings, younger adults in both cultural groups outperformed their older comparison group on all memory tests. For 2 tests, which made use of visual stimuli resembling ideographic haracters in written Chinese, the older Chinese Canadians approached, but did not reach, the performance achieved by their younger counterparts, aswell as outperformed the older Anglophone Canadians. However, on the other two tests, which assess memory for complex figures and abstract designs, no differences were observed between the older Chinese and Anglophone Canadians. Path analysis results uggest that this pattern of findings is not easily attributed to a wholly culturally based account of age differences in memory performance. Cultures differ in the way in which aging is viewed. In main-stream North America, old age is generally regarded by both younger and older adults as a period of poor health, loneliness, resistance to change, and declining physical as well as mental abilities (Erber, 1989; Pratt & Norris, 1994; Ryan, 1992). A number of researchers have suggested that such negative age-based stereotypes may have a detrimental impact on cognition and, especially, on memory as people age (Cavanaugh, 1989; Levy & Langer, 1994; Ryan & Kwong See, 1993). But, as in a number of Asian cultures, some groups in North America (e.g., America