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Prospective memory tasks related to goals and concerns are rated as more important by both young and older adults

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Abstract

There has been little research on variables that affect importance ratings for real prospective memory tasks (e.g., remembering to take medications). Our primary purpose was to test a claim in the motivational-cognitive model of prospective memory, namely that prospective memory tasks highly related to a person’s goals and concerns will be rated as more important. We also tested whether this relationship held in both young and older adults. A secondary purpose was to investigate age-related differences in the perceived importance of prospective memory tasks. Older adults and two younger adult groups completed a questionnaire that assessed current prospective memory tasks, their importance, and whether the tasks were related to participants’ goals and concerns. As predicted, participants provided higher importance ratings for prospective memory tasks that were highly relevant to their personal goals or concerns, and this was true for both young and older adults. Task importance ratings did not differ for older adults and young college students; however, young nonstudents rated their prospective memory tasks as less important than the other two groups. In all three groups, females gave higher prospective memory task importance ratings than males. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the importance of a prospective memory task is partly determined by its goal-relatedness. This newly demonstrated link suggests important avenues for future research, including research on the mechanisms through which goals improve prospective memory performance.

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Notes

  1. We did not consider these small demographic differences important for comparing young subgroups on the minor hypotheses because the size of the age difference was small (approximately two years on average, i.e., 19 vs. 21 years old) and we had no reason to believe that marital status would systematically increase or decrease the perceived importance of everyday prospective memory tasks.

  2. Four older adults were missing data for these demographic questions (two had missing data for education level and overall health level; two were missing only overall health level).

  3. Almost all participants (96.3 %) listed five tasks, as requested. Four participants, all older adults, listed less than five (i.e., one listed three tasks, two listed two tasks, and one listed one task).

  4. We also successfully replicated the predicted main effect using a nonparametric test that only assumed ordinal scaling for importance ratings (Wilcoxen signed rank test, p = .001). We thank Hans-Werner Wahl and an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

  5. We also tested whether gender interacted with goal-relatedness, but the interaction was not significant (F < 1).

  6. We also successfully replicated this predicted main effect using a nonparametric test that only assumed ordinal scaling for importance ratings (Wilcoxen signed rank test, p < .001). We thank Hans-Werner Wahl and an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

  7. We also tested whether gender interacted with concern-relatedness, but the interaction was not significant (F < 1).

  8. We also successfully replicated this predicted main effect using a nonparametric test that only assumed ordinal scaling for importance ratings (Kruskal–Wallis test, p = .031). We thank Hans-Werner Wahl and an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Victoria Murdock, Amanda Danielson, William Trent Holder, Everett Woodward, Kathy McGuire, Ben Decker, Stephanie Worthen, Mari Eisenhart, Amanda Herth, Denise Sims, Kayla Wolf, Cassidy Sauter, Mary Nass, and Chelsea Kebert for assistance in data collection, data coding, and data entry. Portions of these data were reported at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, U. S., April, 2006.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Department 3415, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Avenue, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA

    Suzanna L. Penningroth & Walter D. Scott

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  1. Suzanna L. Penningroth
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  2. Walter D. Scott
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Correspondence to Suzanna L. Penningroth.

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Responsible editor: H.-W. Wahl.

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Penningroth, S.L., Scott, W.D. Prospective memory tasks related to goals and concerns are rated as more important by both young and older adults. Eur J Ageing 10, 211–221 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-013-0265-9

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