Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189

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Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/archger

Does negative information about aging influence older adults’ physical T

performance and subjective age?
⁎
Manon Marqueta, , Mohamed Boutaayamoub,c, Cédric Schwartzc, Médéa Locquetd,
Olivier Bruyèred, Jean-Louis Croisierc,e, Stéphane Adama
a
Psychology of Aging Unit, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
b
INTELSIG Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
c
Laboratory of Human Motion Analysis, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
d
Department of Public Health, Epidemiology and Health Economics, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
e
Department of Motricity Sciences, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This study investigated the way negative stereotypes influence older adults’ physical performance and how old
Stereotype threat they feel mentally and physically. Sixty-four older adults aged 65 years and older performed different physical
Self-perceptions of aging tasks using a 3D optoelectronic system under a low or high stereotype threat condition. Self-perceptions of aging
Balance were considered as a moderator of the effects of threat. Overall, the effects of threat on physical performance
Walking
were mostly not significant across tasks. However, threat condition influenced older adults' mental subjective
Subjective age
age after they had performed the physical tests; people in the high-threat condition felt closer to their chron-
ological age. Threat also influenced participants' physical subjective age, and this effect was moderated by self-
perceptions of aging. More precisely, participants in the high-threat condition felt 7% physically older than their
chronological age when they had more negative self-perceptions, while participants in the low-threat condition
felt 13% younger. No differences emerged for participants who had more positive self-perceptions. The present
findings suggest that performing physical tests under stereotype threat might worsen older people’s subjective
experience of their own aging by making them feel older.

1. Introduction of confirming negative stereotypes and, consequently, underperform on

In modern industrialized societies, the increasing proportion of
older people is associated with an idea of aging focused deeply on de-
cline. Even if older people are perceived as warm by younger in-
dividuals, they are often considered as physically and cognitively inept
(Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2008). According to Levy (2003, 2009), these
negative stereotypes about aging are internalized across the lifespan
and become self-relevant as people grow older (i.e., self-perceptions of
aging: SPA), which may affect their mental and physical health. In
particular, a number of long-term follow-up studies have shown that
holding negative SPA at baseline are associated with more physical
health problems and an increased-mortality risk over time (for a review,
see Westerhof et al., 2014). For example, Sargent-Cox, Anstey, and
Luszcz (2012) found that poor SPA were associated with a steep decline
of balance, gait speed, and ability to rise from a chair in older adults
over a 16-year period.
Not only can SPA affect physical performance, but stereotype threat
may also play a role. Stereotype threat appears when people feel a risk
stereotype relevant tasks (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Even if older adults
are stereotyped as cognitively and physically incompetent (e.g.,
Hummert, 2011), research on stereotype threat has mostly investigated
the effects of stereotype threat on cognitive abilities (for a review, see
Lamont, Swift, & Abrams, 2015). To our knowledge, only two studies
(Horton, Baker, Pearce, & Deakin, 2010; Swift, Lamont, & Abrams,
2012) examined stereotype threat effects on older adults’ motor skills.
Swift et al. (2012) found that a measure of handgrip strength and
persistence was impaired among older people when they were told that
the purpose of the research was to see whether older people performed
various tasks differently when compared with young people. On the
contrary, Horton et al. (2010) found no effect of stereotype threat (i.e.,
reading an article confirming decline of memory and physical abilities
during aging) on measures of grip strength and flexibility. One possible
explanation for this difference may be that while participants’ grip
strength was measured directly after the manipulation in the first study,
there was a delay between the manipulation and the measures of the
dependent variables in the second one. Stereotype threat effects are

⁎
Corresponding author. Present address: INSERM U1219 Bordeaux Research Centre for Population Health, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
E-mail address: mmarquet@uliege.be (M. Marquet).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2018.06.013
Received 17 January 2018; Received in revised form 22 June 2018; Accepted 25 June 2018
Available online 26 June 2018
0167-4943/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
M. Marquet et al.
more evident when the dependent variables are measured proximally to
the manipulation (Lamont et al., 2015).
These mixed findings highlight the need to conduct further research
for a better understanding of the effects of stereotype threat on older
adults’ physical abilities. Indeed, stereotype threat has been shown to
induce a prevention focus among older adults, resulting in cognitive
performance that is slow and cautious (Barber & Mather, 2013b;
Popham & Hess, 2015). Therefore, it would be interesting to investigate
whether older adults under threat adopt a more cautious approach to
physical tasks resulting in slower execution of these tasks. Moreover, if
participants are vigilant and try to control step-by-step their perfor-
mance to ensure a positive outcome, this could be damaging in tasks
(e.g., walking) that rely more on proceduralized strategies (i.e., auto-
matic strategies running with minimum intervention from working
memory) (Beilock, Jellison, Rydell, McConnell, & Carr, 2006).
In addition, since stereotype threat and SPA have mostly been stu-
died separately, their joint influence on physical abilities should be
further examined. A recent study focusing on memory abilities showed
that older people were more vulnerable to stereotype threat if they had
more negative SPA (Fernández-Ballesteros, Bustillos, & Huici, 2015).
However, the question remains whether such results would be similar
in situations assessing physical abilities under stereotype threat.
In parallel to these questions, the effects of stereotype threat on
subjective age have been insufficiently studied. Subjective age reflects
the numeric age people feel like or view themselves (Stephan, Sutin, &
Terracciano, 2015b). Previous studies consistently found that while
adolescents and young adults tend to feel older than their chronological
age, most middle-aged and older adults report feeling younger than
their chronological age by an average of 20% (e.g., Montepare &
Lachman, 1989; Rubin & Berntsen, 2006). Despite this trend, subjective
age is somewhat malleable and people can deviate from their chron-
ological age in response to experiences situationally and socially asso-
ciated with a certain normative age (Montepare, 2009). For example,
inducing an older subjective age can be achieved by simulating an age-
related decline. Older adults who experience visual disfluency during a
reading task and who receive no explanation for the blurriness, feel
older than participants who are told the text is blurry because of a
printing error and those who read clear text (Eibach, Mock, & Courtney,
2010). Situations can also be manipulated to induce a younger sub-
jective age. Older adults who are led to believe that their test perfor-
mance on a grip-strength task is higher than the performance of 80% of
their peers report feeling younger after the test and have better sub-
sequent performance in the same task compared to older adults who
perform the same test with no feedback (Stephan, Chalabaev, Kotter-
Grühn, & Jaconelli, 2013).
Some results also suggest that age-related stereotypes, which are
likely to be activated by cognitive testing, may influence subjective age
because there are cues in the environment that remind older adults of
the expectation that they are not competent (e.g., one is expected to
have memory problems because of aging). This in turn prevents them
from maintaining a younger subjective age. For example, it has been
shown that older people feel older after performing stereotyped tasks,
such as memory tests (Geraci, De Forrest, Hughes, Saenz, & Tirso, 2018;
Hughes, Geraci, & De Forrest, 2013). Interestingly, performing a task
described as a memory test is sufficient to create a stereotype threat
situation (Rahhal, Hasher, & Colcombe, 2001). In line with these re-
sults, a recent study showed that when older people are worried about
confirming negative stereotypes concerning their memory abilities in a
stereotype threat situation, they feel mentally (i.e., cognitive vitality)
older (Marquet, Missotten, Dardenne, & Adam, 2017). Extending this
logic to physical subjective age, we suggest that the activation of ne-
gative age stereotypes about physical performance in a stereotype
threat situation may lead older people to feel physically older. More-
over, since there is some evidence that beliefs that age-related memory
changes are inevitable predict the subjective aging effect over the
course of a testing session (Geraci et al., 2018), the effect of stereotype
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Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189
threat on physical subjective age may also be moderated by SPA. More
precisely, this effect may be particularly true for people who perceive
more negatively their physical functioning.
Taking into account the previous results, the purpose of the current
study was to examine the effects of stereotype threat on older adults’
physical performance, measured as objectively as possible, and on their
subjective age. Firstly, we hypothesized that older people under high
threat would underperform in physical tests. More specifically, we
hypothesized that stereotype threat would induce a prevention focus
(Barber & Mather, 2013a): older adults exposed to negative age-related
information would be more likely to adopt a conservative strategy
when performing physical tasks, and this could disrupt their perfor-
mance. Secondly, we expected that older people in a stereotype threat
situation would feel older. Similarly to previous studies (e.g., Marquet
et al., 2017; Uotinen, Rantanen, & Suutama, 2005), we included mea-
sures of both mental and physical subjective age. We expected a greater
influence of stereotypes on physical subjective age, that is, when there
was a match between the activated stereotypes and the outcome do-
main (Kornadt & Rothermund, 2015; Marquet et al., 2017). We also
tested whether these effects were moderated by SPA (i.e., perceptions of
one’s own physical functioning during aging). We hypothesized that
stereotype threat effects on physical performance and physical sub-
jective age would be more pronounced among participants with more
negative SPA.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Participants
Based on sample sizes and effect sizes from previous studies (Beilock
et al., 2006; Coudin & Alexopoulos, 2010; Hausdorff, Levy, & Wei,
1999; Swift et al., 2012), we recruited seventy-two older people aged
65 years and over. They agreed to participate in our study between
April 2015 and February 2016. They were recruited on the basis of data
collected during their last appointment in a larger ongoing longitudinal
study conducted among community-dwelling elderly subjects (Beaudart
et al., 2015). We contacted participants with good global cognitive
functioning (i.e., Mini-Mental State Examination score ≥24–26, de-
pending on participants’ education; Tombaugh & McIntyre, 1992),
without walking assistance, who were not diagnosed as sarcopenic in
Beaudart et al.’ (2015) study (according to the European Working
Group on Sarcopenia in Older People; Cruz-Jentoft et al., 2010), and
who did not present a risk of falling (i.e., Timed Up and Go test
score < 14 s; Podsiadlo & Richardson, 1991, and Tinetti test score ≥24
points; Tinetti, 1986).
Eight participants were removed from the analyses: one reported
having Parkinson disease, three had missing data on our measure of
SPA, and four reported a fall during the past 6 months, which had not
been specified earlier. According to G*Power 3.1 (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang,
& Buchner, 2007) and given this sample size, the power to detect a
medium to large effect size comparable to other studies (Beilock et al.,
2006; Swift et al., 2012) in a multiple regression analysis varies be-
tween 1 – b = 0.71 and 1 – b = 0.98.
In the end, 29 female and 35 male were included in our analyses.
Their age ranged from 65 to 90 years (M = 72.22, SD = 5.37) and on
average they had completed 13 years education. Fifty-nine percent
were married, 17% were widowed and the remainder were separated
(13%) or single (11%).
2.2. Procedure
This study was conducted in two parts described below.
2.2.1. Part 1 – longitudinal study
First, during the last appointment scheduled in the context of the
longitudinal study, participants completed different questionnaires and
M. Marquet et al.
realized different tasks that we used as baseline characteristics (for
greater details about the procedure, see Beaudart et al., 2015). They
also answered a questionnaire that assessed their SPA during this ap-
pointment. This allowed us not to administer this measure during the
second part of the study (which manipulated stereotypes threat) in
order to avoid suspicion among participants about the true nature of the
study.
2.2.2. Part 2 – experimental study
During the second part of the study, all participants were tested
individually by a 24-year-old female experimenter in a quiet private
room (Laboratory of Human Motion Analysis of the University of
Liège). This part of the study was introduced as a study to investigate
the mechanisms that underlie walking using a kinematic 3D analysis
system. Participants gave their informed consent to take part in the
study, which was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of
Liège. After giving consent, participants were asked to rate how old
they felt, both mentally and physically (baseline mental and physical
subjective age), and then to provide socio-demographic data.
Stereotype threat was then manipulated; 32 participants were ran-
domly assigned to a low-threat condition and 32 to a high-threat con-
dition. Participants in the low-threat condition were told only that the
aim of the study was to investigate the mechanisms that underlie
walking and to study their movements in 3D during different walking
tasks. In addition to this explanation, participants in the high-threat
condition were also told that the precise aim of the research was to
“study balance among people aged 65 years and older”. Participants in the
high-threat condition were also exposed to several additional pieces of
information to emphasize the idea that older adults suffer from balance
problems. In fact, they were invited to answer a short survey before
performing the different physical tasks. This short survey gave parti-
cipants negative information about balance abilities during aging. They
were asked to judge four different posters with regard to different
characteristics (e.g., clarity, attractiveness, esthetics). Three of the
posters focused on balance (e.g., “How to keep one’s balance after 60?”
and “Arrange your home to resolve your balance disabilities”) and one
on fall (e.g., “How to arrange one’s home to avoid falls?”). Participants
were told that the purpose of the survey was to select the most relevant
poster to raise awareness of balance disorders and encourage home
modifications among older adults.
All the participants then completed different physical tasks in the
following order: 1) Timed Up and Go test, (2) Comfortable walking
speed, (3) Rapid walking speed, (4) Tandem walking, (5) Crossing over
two different obstacles, (6) One-leg standing test (twice), and (7) Grip
strength and persistence. During the physical tasks (except grip strength
and persistence), participants were equipped with 3D active markers,
which allowed their kinematics to be followed and physical perfor-
mance to be measured as objectively as possible.
All participants were given instructions for each test - i.e., what was
expected from them (e.g., walking at a comfortable pace along a line).
Participants in the high-threat condition only were also reminded of the
study aims before each test. They were informed at the beginning of
each test of the type of balance that was measured (e.g., when getting
up from a chair, when walking slowly compared to rapidly, when
crossing an obstacle, in a static position) by the female experimenter.
For the grip strength and persistence measures, participants in the high-
threat condition were also told that muscular strength was assessed
since it influences balance in older adults.
Following these tasks, all participants reported their mental and
physical subjective age for the second time. They also answered two
questionnaires: one assessed their suggestibility, and the other assessed
their usual physical activity.
Finally, participants were debriefed verbally and in writing. They
signed a second consent form indicating that they were aware of the
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Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189
true purpose of the study and that any questions had been answered to
their satisfaction. No participant refused to sign the second form nor
asked for their data to be removed from the study.
2.3. Measures from the longitudinal study
2.3.1. Baseline clinical characteristics and physical performance
We considered different characteristics collected during the larger
study: anthropometric data (i.e., height, weight, body mass index),
number of drugs, self-reported comorbidities, activities of daily living
(i.e., Katz; Katz, Ford, Moskowitz, Jackson, & Jaffe, 1963, Lawton;
Lawton & Brody, 1970), cognitive function (i.e., Mini-Mental State
Examination; Tombaugh & McIntyre, 1992), level of depression (i.e.,
Geriatric Depression Scale; Yesavage et al., 1983), nutritional status
(Guigoz, Vellas, & Garry, 1996), physical frailty (Fried et al., 2001),
quality of life (i.e., SF-36; Ware & Sherbourne, 1992), tiredness
(Avlund, Kreiner, & Schultz-Larsen, 1993), grip strength and work as
well as risk of fall (i.e., Timed Up and Go test; Podsiadlo & Richardson,
1991, and Tinetti test; Tinetti, 1986), and physical performance (i.e.,
Short Physical Performance Battery test; Guralnik et al., 2000). We also
assessed the time elapsed (in days) between the first (i.e., last ap-
pointment as part of the larger longitudinal study) and second part of
the study (i.e., experimental study).
2.3.2. SPA
SPA were measured using the French version of the Attitudes to
Aging Questionnaire (Marquet et al., 2016). This questionnaire assessed
attitudes toward the aging process as a personal experience from the
perspective of older adults. For the 24 items of the questionnaire, re-
spondents were asked to indicate their degree of agreement on a five-
point Likert scale, where 1 reflects “strongly disagree” or “not at all
true”, and 5 reflects “strongly agree” or “extremely true”. Even if this
scale can be divided into three subscales, we only used the Physical
Change subscale (range: 8–40): a high score reflects a more positive
view of one’s physical functioning (e.g., “My health is better than I
expected for my age”) and of one’s experience of aging itself (e.g.,
“Growing older has been easier than I thought”).
2.4. Measures from the experimental study
2.4.1. Socio-demographic characteristics
We assessed chronological age, educational level, sex, and marital
status. Moreover, participants were asked whether they suffered from
osteoarthritis in the hands (responding, yes, severely; yes, mildly; yes,
very slightly or no, not at all, coded 1 to 4, respectively) (Swift et al.,
2012). They were also asked to report their subjective mental and
physical health (“How do you judge your current state of mental/
physical health?”) on 9-cm continuous scales with “very bad” and “very
good” as endpoints (Coudin & Alexopoulos, 2010). Finally, they re-
ported whether they had experienced a sad or depressed mood during
the last two weeks on a 10-cm scale ranging from “not at all” to “ex-
tremely”.
2.4.2. Motion analysis system and physical tasks
During the physical tasks described below (except grip strength and
endurance), we used a three-dimensional optoelectronic system
(Codamotion™, Charnwood Dynamics, Rothley, UK) to measure the
movements. We tracked the 3D positions with active markers placed on
the volunteers and four Codamotion CX1 units. The acquisition rate was
equal to 200 Hz. Three markers were placed on each foot, three on each
arm and two on the back. Markers on each heel and big toe (i.e., hallux)
were placed on the shoes. Markers on arms and the back were included
as part of separate investigations and will not be analyzed or discussed
further. For some physical tasks (i.e., the Timed Up and Go and the one-
M. Marquet et al.
leg standing test), we also used force plates (Kistler™ type 9281EA, Kisle
AG, Switzerland) to compute physical performance parameters. The
physical tasks were performed in the following order.
The Timed Up and Go test is a measure of balance performance
(Podsiadlo & Richardson, 1991) that provides, in seconds, the time
taken by an individual to rise from a chair, walk three meters, turn, and
return back to a sitting position. Higher scores indicate slower walking
speed.
For the comfortable and rapid walking, participants were asked to
walk straight forward at a comfortable pace and then as fast as possible
along a 14.3-meter line. The position of the markers placed on the heel
and toe of each foot were measured during each walking test. A signal-
processing algorithm based on a piecewise linear fitting method
(Boutaayamou et al., 2014) was then applied to these data to compute
different parameters based on approximately 3–4 strides (Boutaayamou
et al., 2015). Mean velocity (m/s), mean double support time (s), ca-
dence (stride/s), mean minimum toe clearance (mm), and mean stride
width (mm) were selected as gait performance parameters based on the
literature (Chiba, Ebihara, Tomita, Sasaki, & Butler, 2005; Sturnieks, St
George, & Lord, 2008; Verghese, Holtzer, Lipton, & Wang, 2009). These
parameters represent different domains of spatiotemporal gait perfor-
mance (e.g., Hollman, McDade, & Petersen, 2011).
During the tandem walking, subjects were required to walk heel-to-
toe along a 8.3-meter line. They were told that precision, not velocity,
matters. The mean inter-feet distance as well as the mean lateral dis-
tance between the feet were computed with the same signal-processing
algorithm described in the previous paragraph. Higher scores indicate a
decreased ability of maintaining medio-lateral stability. Note that data
for this test were missing for one participant because of a technical
problem with Codamotion during the acquisition of the data.
Participants were asked to walk and cross over an obstacle, twice, at
a comfortable pace. The markers placed on the heels allowed us to
measure the time taken to cross the obstacle, which can be considered
as indicator of balance (Pan, Hsu, Chang, Renn, & Wu, 2016; Sturnieks
et al., 2008). The first obstacle was a box (14 cm height, 27.5 cm width,
and 33.5 cm length), and the second, a differently sized box (22.5 cm
height, 22.5 cm width, and 31 cm length). Obstacles were placed
midway, and participants had to cross them lengthways without
touching them.
The one-leg standing test (for a review, see Michikawa, Nishiwaki,
Takebayashi, & Toyama, 2009) assessed static and standing balance.
Participants were asked to stand on their right leg if possible, and the
test was interrupted after 30 s. The time until the participant put the
other foot down was used for the measurement. Compensatory arm
movements were accepted during the test. The test was performed
twice, and we considered the mean time the participants stood on their
leg (Range: 0–30 s).
Finally, hand grip strength (in kilograms) and endurance (in sec-
onds) were measured using a Saehan® type hand dynamometer since
strength has been shown to be lower in a stereotype threat condition
(Swift et al., 2012). The measures were conducted with the participants
sitting and holding the dynamometer at a 90-degree angle with fore-
arms on a table. For the grip strength, participants were encouraged to
perform maximal contractions three times. Three measurements were
taken on each hand alternating between the left and right hand. The
best score of the six trials was used in the analyses (Roberts et al.,
2011). Endurance was considered, for each hand, as the ability to
maintain at least 50% of one’s maximal voluntary contraction for as
long as one could. A force equivalent to 50% of this maximal force was
then shown on 15.6 inch computer screen by a red line (using the data
software bought with the dynamometer), and the subjects were in-
structed to press the handle until they reached the line and to hold the
handle at this minimum level for as long as possible. We used the mean
time of the two endurance measures.
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Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189
2.4.3. Subjective age
Participants were told “Many people feel older or younger than they
actually are”. They were asked “What age do you feel now?” and were
provided with two different lines to determine the age they felt men-
tally (Mental subjective age; i.e., cognitive vitality: reasoning, lan-
guage, memory, attention, etc.) and physically (Physical subjective age;
e.g., muscle strength, cardiovascular and pulmonary health).
Participants had to draw a tick mark on each line that was 120 mm long
and contained no markings other than two endpoint age labels (“0” on
the far left and “120” on the far right) (Hughes et al., 2013) Subjective
age was determined by measuring the distance between the left end and
the participant’s tick mark in millimeters (1 mm = 1 year). Consistent
with prior research (e.g., Eibach et al., 2010; Stephan, Sutin, Caudroit,
& Terracciano, 2016), proportional discrepancy scores were calculated
by subtracting participants’ chronological age from their mental and
physical subjective age, and these difference scores were divided by
chronological age. A positive value indicates an older subjective age,
whereas a negative value indicates a youthful subjective age. Baseline
subjective age measures (the same items administered at the beginning
of the study) were used as covariates.
2.4.4. Suggestibility
Participants were also evaluated for suggestibility levels using the
short version of the Multidimensional Iowa Suggestibility Scale (Kotov,
Bellman, & Watson, 2004), a 21-item self-reported measure of sug-
gestibility that was translated in French. The scale includes five sug-
gestibility subscales: Consumer Suggestibility, Persuadability, Physio-
logical Suggestibility, Physiological Reactivity, and Peer Conformity.
We used the total score (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86), which corresponds
to the sum of the five subscales (Range: 21–105).
2.4.5. Physical activity
Physical activity was measured with the Physical Activity self-
Administered Questionnaire (Vol et al., 2011). It is comprised of 22
closed questions and divided into three subscales: usual daily activities,
regular sport activities, and leisure activities. We considered the global
physical activity level, which is the sum of the three subscales (Range:
3–15).
2.5. Statistical analyses
Data analyses were performed using SPSS 23 (IBM Corp, 2015) and
Hayes’ PROCESS macro for SPSS v3.0.
Preliminary independent sample t-tests (or Mann–Whitney U tests)
and Chi-squared analyses were first conducted on baseline character-
istics and performance from the longitudinal study to determine if there
were any significant variations, and thus potential confounds, across
conditions. We also computed these analyses on demographic char-
acteristics collected during the experimental study (including chron-
ological age, mental and physical subjective age, gender, marital status,
educational level, and self-rated health) as well as on SPA, suggest-
ibility, and physical activity. The criterion for statistical significance
was p < 0.05.
Multiple regressions were then conducted for physical tasks and
subjective age as the dependent variables and threat, SPA and their
interaction as independent variables. In these analyses, we centered
threat (low vs. high, coded as -0.5 and 0.5, respectively). SPA was also
mean-centered before being multiplied to create the interaction term.
Residuals of half of the physical performance variables were not nor-
mally distributed. Results for these variables (b, SE, and 95% con-
fidence intervals) are therefore based on 5000 bootstrapped resamples.
Significance for regression analyses was established when the percentile
confidence intervals did not include zero.
M. Marquet et al. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189

Table 1 Table 2
Baseline characteristics and performance from the larger longitudinal study as a Sample characteristics as a function of stereotype threat condition.
function of stereotype threat condition.
Low-threat condition High-threat condition
Low-threat High-threat Mean (SD)/n Mean (SD)/n
condition condition
Mean (SD)/n Mean (SD)/n Chronological age 72.03 (5.45) 72.41 (5.37)
Baseline mental subjective age −0.15 (0.15) −0.19 (0.19)
Number of concomittant diseases 4.38 (2.57) 5.06 (2.65) Baseline physical subjective age −0.10 (0.13) −0.10 (0.16)
Number of drugs 3.72 (2.25) 3.50 (2.34) Years of education 13.41 (3.20) 13.25 (2.98)
Anthropometric data Osteoarthritis 0.94 (0.91) 0.66 (0.97)
Height (cm) 166.14 (9.52) 166.04 (7.97) Mental health 6.63 (1.34) 7.34 (1.26)
Weight (kg) 75.76 (14.51) 73.12 (14.37) Physical health 5.91 (1.23) 6.34 (1.50)
Body mass index 27.26 (3.44) 26.38 (3.99) Depressed mood 1.85 (2.34) 1.57 (2.17)
Cognitive function – MMSE score (0–30) 29.31 (0.78) 29.28 (0.73) SPA 30.31 (5.40) 32.16 (4.56)
Depression level – GDS score (0–15) 2.19 (2.81) 2.25 (2.78) Suggestibility 34.84 (8.26) 35.47 (8.00)
Katz total score (6–24) 8.19 (0.40) 8.09 (0.30) Physical activity 9.00 (1.21) 8.66 (1.17)
Lawton score Gender 15 women 14 women
Men total (1–5) 5.00 (0.00) 4.89 (0.47) 17 men 18 men
Women total (1–8) 8.00 (0.00) 8.00 (0.00) Marital status 5 single 2 single
Frailty - Fried score 20 married 18 married
Nonfrail 24 23 4 separated 4 separated
Prefrail 8 8 3 widowed 8 widowed
Frail 0 1
Mini-Nutritional Assessment All differences are non-significant (p > 0.12), except for mental health
Well-nourished 32 32 (p = 0.03).
Quality of Life – SF-36 total score (%) 71.28 (15.90) 70.96 (17.69) SD = Standard deviation. SPA = Self-perceptions of aging.
Tiredness – Mobility test (6 points) 0.78 (1.56) 0.59 (1.27)
Grip strength (kg) 33.98 (13.34) 34.55 (12.31)
Grip work (kg × s) 501.77 (369.84) 510.36 (306.10) 8 mm higher among participants in the high-threat condition compared
Risk of falls to the low-threat condition (b = 7.79, 95% CI [0.2968; 15.1798],
Tinetti gait (16 points) 15.88 (0.42) 15.91 (0.39) p = 0.04).
Tinetti walk (12 points) 11.84 (0.51) 11.84 (0.51)
Tinetti total (28 points) 27.72 (0.89) 27.75 (0.80)
TUG (s) 9.4 (2.02) 9.17 (2.11) 3.3. Subjective age
Physical performance – SPPB
Total score (12 points) 10.84 (1.30) 11.06 (1.13)
Table 3 also shows that threat predicted mental (b = 0.11,
Walking speed (m/s) 1.19 (0.25) 1.24 (0.27)
Time elapsed (days) 44.28 (23.17) 46.5 (20.62)
p = 0.02) and physical subjective age (b = 0.11, p = 0.01), and that
people in the high-threat condition felt 11% older than people in the
All differences are non-significant (p > 0.28). low-threat condition (Fig. 1A). It means, for example, that controlling
SD = Standard deviation; BMI = Body Mass Index; MMSE = Mini-Mental State for initial differences in subjective age, a 70-year-old individual in the
Examination; GDS = Geriatric Depression Scale; TUG = Timed Up and Go test; high-threat condition felt around 8 years older than a 70-year-old in-
SPPB = Short Physical Performance Battery test. dividual in the low-threat condition after the experimental manipula-
tion. Moreover, the prediction of physical subjective age by the
threat × SPA interaction was under the threshold of alpha = 0.05
(b = −0.02, 95% CI [−0.0347; −0.0002], p = 0.048) (Fig. 1B).
3. Results
Simple slopes analyses regarding the effect of threat on physical
subjective age moderated by SPA showed that for people with more
3.1. Participants’ characteristics
positive SPA (1 SD above the mean: b = 0.0192, 95% CI [−0.1003;
0.1387], p = 0.75), there was no difference in physical subjective age
Preliminary analyses revealed that participants in the low- and high-
between people in the low- and high-threat condition. However, for
threat condition did not differ (all p > 0.05) regarding clinical char-
people with more negative SPA, people in the high-threat condition felt
acteristics and baseline physical performance collected during their last
physically older than people in the low-threat condition (1 SD below
meeting as part of the larger longitudinal study (Beaudart et al., 2015)
the mean: b = 0.20, 95% CI [0.0712; 0.3191], p = 0.003).
(Table 1). It can hence be concluded that the random assignment of
Further examination revealed that physical subjective age increased
participants to the experimental condition was successful for these
with negative SPA in the high-threat condition (b = −0.02, 95% CI
baseline characteristics.
[−0.0286; −0.0013], p = 0.03), as shown in Fig. 1B; this relationship
Other characteristics measured during the current study did not
was in the opposite direction but was not significant in the low-threat
vary significantly by condition, except for self-perceived mental health
condition (b = 0.003, 95% CI [−0.0089; 0.0138], p = 0.67).
(Table 2). Because computing the regression analyses with including
self-perceived mental health as a covariate did not change the results,
we did not control for it in regression analyses. 4. Discussion

Older people are usually stereotyped as being mentally and physi-

3.2. Physical performance
Regression analyses conducted on physical performance are shown
in Table 3. Except for tandem walking (i.e., mean lateral distance be-
tween feet), we did not find any significant effect of stereotype threat
condition, SPA, or the interaction between these two variables, which
indicated no significant effect. The only significant effect that emerged
showed an effect of the threat condition when participants walked in
tandem. More precisely, the mean lateral distance between feet was
cally incompetent (Cuddy et al., 2008). While the effects of age ste-
reotypes on cognitive functioning have been widely investigated in
older adults (for a review, see Lamont et al., 2015), the literature has
produced mixed results regarding the impact of negative age-related
information on their physical performance (e.g., Horton et al., 2010;
Swift et al., 2012). The aim of the present research was, therefore, to
investigate the effects of stereotype threat on older adults’ physical
performance as well as on their subjective age. We focused on physical
performance tasks that can be used to predict balance disorders among

185
 M. Marquet et al.

Table 3
Prediction of physical performance and subjective age by stereotype threat condition and SPA.
Intercept Threat SPA Threat x SPA

b SE 95% CI b SE 95% CI b SE 95% CI b SE 95% CI

Physical performance

TUG Time (s) 11.37 0.29 10.83; 11.93 0.14 0.56 −0.97; 1.26 −0.08 0.06 −0.19; 0.03 −0.07 0.12 −0.29 ; 0.16
Comfortable walking speed *Speed (m/s) 1.14 0.02 1.09; 1.19 −0.03 0.05 −0.12; 0.06 0.01 0.00 −0.003; 0.01 0.01 0.01 −0.01 ; 0.03
Double support (s) 0.15 0.00 0.14; 0.16 0.00 0.01 −0.01; 0.01 0.00 0.00 −0.003; 0.0002 0.00 0.00 −0.003; 0.003
Cadence (strides/s) 0.89 0.01 0.88; 0.91 −0.01 0.02 −0.04; 0.02 0.00 0.00 −0.001; 0.01 0.00 0.00 −0.01; 0.004
*Toe clearance (mm) 20.04 1.23 17.22; 22.55 0.79 2.46 −4.03; 5.52 −0.12 0.24 −0.60; 0.35 −0.16 0.49 −1.16; 0.77
Width (mm) 70.45 3.72 63.00; 77.90 10.91 7.45 −3.98; 25.81 −0.99 0.75 −2.50; 0.51 −1.03 1.51 −4.05; 1.99
Rapid walking speed *Speed (m/s) 1.58 0.03 1.51; 1.64 −0.06 0.07 −0.19; 0.08 0.01 0.01 −0.01; 0.02 0.02 0.01 −0.01; 0.05
Double support (s) 0.10 0.00 0.10; 0.11 0.00 0.01 −0.01; 0.02 0.00 0.00 −0.002; 0.0004 0.00 0.00 −0.004; 0.002
Cadence (strides/s) 1.06 0.01 1.04; 1.08 0.00 0.02 −0.05; 0.05 0.00 0.00 −0.001; 0.01 0.00 0.00 −0.01; 0.01
*Toe clearance (mm) 22.69 1.42 19.98; 25.59 1.11 2.83 −4.36; 6.75 −0.13 0.29 −0.71; 0.44 −0.19 0.58 −1.40; 0.90
*Width (mm) 74.97 3.90 67.63; 82.79 10.34 7.82 −5.11; 25.37 −0.95 0.80 −2.53; 0.61 0.54 1.59 −2.70; 3.59
Tandem walkinga *Mean distance (mm) 30.53 3.26 24.54; 37.28 3.57 6.43 −8.83; 16.38 0.61 0.63 −0.59; 1.90 0.01 1.28 −2.59; 2.40

186
*Mean lateral distance (mm) 25.05 1.91 21.33; 29.01 7.79 3.77 0.30; 15.18 0.05 0.47 −0.87; 0.97 0.98 0.95 −0.85; 2.90
Obstacles *Obstacle 1 - Time (s) 2.12 0.03 2.05; 2.19 0.07 0.07 −0.06; 0.20 −0.01 0.01 −0.03; 0.00 0.00 0.01 −0.03; 0.03
Obstacle 2 - Time (s) 2.28 0.04 2.20; 2.37 0.16 0.08 −0.01; 0.33 −0.02 0.01 −0.03; 0.0002 −0.03 0.02 −0.06; 0.01
One leg-standing *Time (s) 12.82 1.32 10.25; 15.43 −0.06 2.64 −5.24; 5.05 0.40 0.32 −0.21; 1.06 0.49 0.62 −0.72; 1.72
Grip Grip strength (kg) 35.64 1.54 32.56; 38.72 1.39 3.08 −4.77; 7.55 −0.24 0.31 −0.86; 0.39 0.54 0.62 −0.70; 1.79
Grip persistence (s) 36.71 2.40 31.90; 41.51 −0.30 4.80 −9.91; 9.31 0.52 0.49 −0.46; 1.49 −0.34 0.97 −2.29; 1.61

Subjective age

Mental subjective agea 0.00 0.03 −0.07; 0.07 0.11 0.05 0.02; 0.21 −0.01 0.00 −0.02; 0.002 −0.01 0.01 −0.03; 0.01
Physical subjective ageb −0.02 0.03 −0.07; 0.04 0.11 0.05 0.02; 0.19 −0.01 0.00 −0.02; 0.003 −0.02 0.01 −0.03;
-0.0002

TUG = Timed Up and Go test. SPA = Self-perceptions of aging. SE = Standard errors. 95% CI = 95% confidence intervals. an = 63. *Bootstrapped coefficients, standard errors, and confidence intervals. aBaseline mental
subjective age in covariate. bBaseline physical subjective age in covariate. Significant hypothesized effects are in bold.
Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189
M. Marquet et al.
Fig. 1. Subjective age according to stereotype threat condition and self-perceptions of aging. SPA = Self-perceptions of aging. On the y-axis, value of zero represents
subjective age equivalent to actual age, negative values represent younger subjective age and positive values represent older subjective age.
older adults and we measured physical performance parameters as
precisely and objectively as possible. We also considered participants’
perceptions of their own physical functioning as a moderator.
4.1. Physical performance
The effects of threat on physical performance were mostly not sig-
nificant. Only one significant effect of threat emerged and it accorded
with our expectations. During tandem walking we observed that people
in the high-threat condition exhibited a higher mean lateral distance
between their feet, indicating that they had more difficulty aligning
their feet when they walked heel to toe.
Overall, these non-significant effects of threat on physical perfor-
mance do not allow better understanding of the mixed findings from
previous studies (Horton et al., 2010; Swift et al., 2012). We suggested
that Horton et al. (2010) may not have found effects because there was
a delay between the manipulation and the physical tasks in their study.
To avoid this potential bias, we repeated our manipulation before every
task. However, we did not find effects on strength and persistence,
which is contrary to the findings of Swift et al. (2012). We suggest that
the measures in the current study were not impaired because the ma-
nipulation used did not sufficiently target strength but rather balance.
This explanation accords with studies showing that the influence of
negative stereotypes on memory and balance performance is stronger
when the stereotype content corresponds to the outcome domain (Levy
& Leifheit-Limson, 2009).
More generally, the threat may not have impaired most physical
performance measures because we used a manipulation including facts
about aging. It has been shown that stereotype threat effects are greater
when older adults think performance may be judged in relation to age
stereotypes, rather than when they are told ‘facts’ about age-related
decline (Lamont et al., 2015). However, since we found expected results
for subjective age, the reason for an absence of effect may be better
explained by the physical tasks we used rather than by the stereotype
threat manipulation in itself. We suggest that the more proceduralized
performances measured in our study (i.e., The Timed Up and Go time,
comfortable, and rapid walking speed tests) were unaffected overall
because these measures did not assess high-level proceduralized skills
(e.g., golf putting). Past studies have indeed shown that prompting too
much attention to execution processes best run outside conscious con-
trol (Beilock et al., 2006) is maladapted to high-level well-learned skills
(i.e., expert golf putting). Moreover, being cautious under high-threat
has been shown to be inappropriate in cognitive tasks structured to
reward the number of gains (Barber & Mather, 2013a). The physical
tasks included in this study may not have been sufficiently gain-or-
iented to create the regulatory mismatch that has been proven to impair
cognitive performances. Finally, even if it could be argued that the
reason for an absence of significant results regarding physical perfor-
mance was due to a lack of power, we believe this argument cannot
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Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189
explain the results we obtained. Confidence intervals indicate that the
non-significant effects were small or nonexistent. Therefore, non-sig-
nificant effects could not easily be rectified by collecting a larger
sample size.
4.2. Subjective age
While the effects of threat on physical performance were incon-
clusive, we found an influence of our manipulation on psychological
variables (i.e., subjective age). Moreover, as expected, the effects were
stronger for physical subjective age than mental subjective age
(Kornadt & Rothermund, 2015). People in the high-threat condition felt
mentally and physically older than participants in the low-threat con-
dition. However, while participants in the high-threat condition felt
their actual age more than people in the low-threat condition when we
examined mental subjective age, they even felt older than their
chronological age when we examined physical subjective age. In par-
ticular, among those who perceived their physical functioning more
negatively (i.e., more negative SPA), participants in the low-threat
condition felt 13% younger than their actual age, while participants in
the high-threat condition felt 7% older.
The consequences of our manipulation on subjective age are wor-
rying. Several longitudinal studies have shown that feeling older can be
damaging for older people’s mental and physical health. For example,
results of a recent study revealed that people aged 50 years and older
with an older subjective age at baseline presented greater memory
decline over a 4-year follow-up period, in part because they experi-
enced more depressive symptoms (Stephan et al., 2016). Regarding
physical health, the results of two large longitudinal surveys of adults
aged 65 years and older showed that an older subjective age was as-
sociated with lower walking speed over a 2 and 4-year period (Stephan,
Sutin, & Terracciano, 2015a). It has also been demonstrated that people
aged 70 years and older who were less satisfied with their aging and felt
older at baseline presented an increased-mortality risk over a period of
12–16 years (Kotter-Grühn, Kleinspehn-Ammerlahn, Gerstorf, & Smith,
2009). Therefore, even if threatening instructions do not seem to have a
great direct influence on physical performance, we suggest that re-
peated exposure to age stereotypes (by making older people feel closer
to their chronological age or older) could have an effect on physical
performance over time rather than directly. Such a hypothesis finds
some support in a study conducted in the framework of the stereotype
embodiment theory. In this study (Levy, Pilver, Chung, & Slade, 2014),
older adults were primed subliminally with positive age stereotypes
across multiple sessions. Interestingly, over time, the subliminal acti-
vation of positive stereotypes first produced a positive impact on age
stereotypes and then on SPA. Physical function was improved only after
positive SPA had been strengthened. Since these results suggest that the
increase in physical performance can only be observed after an im-
provement of SPA, we could make a similar assumption regarding the
M. Marquet et al.
results of our study. Exposure to negative age stereotypes could impact
physical performance over time only if these stereotypes influence older
people to feel older.
4.3. Limits and future directions
Contribution to the literature notwithstanding, the current study has
several limitations that should be considered in future research. Firstly,
the question remains whether instructions in clinical settings may lead
to an underestimation of the physical abilities of older people. A first
possibility for the absence of effects of threat on physical performance
could be that, given the procedure used, the experimenter was not blind
to conditions, which might have influenced participants’ behaviors
during the physical tasks. However, the instructions remained stan-
dardized across participants and conditions, and physical performance
was objectively assessed, which leads us to consider this explanation
insufficient. Moreover, we actually found expected results for subjective
age, which suggests that the physical functions measured relied too
heavily on proceduralized skills and may not be highly impaired in a
stereotype threat situation, especially among healthy older people.
Future research should assess the effects of stereotype threat on more
difficult physical tasks that rely less on proceduralized skills (e.g.,
balance control in responses to unexpected perturbations).
Secondly, given the number of dependent variables included in our
analyses, we can not exclude the possibility that significant effects of
threat on subjective age were false positive results. In addition to fo-
cusing on more difficult physical tasks, future research should also re-
plicate the effects of threat on subjective age.
Thirdly, because the number of strides used in our analyses was too
small to consider gait variability, future studies should also investigate
the effects of stereotype threat on stride-to-stride variability more
deeply. Indeed, it has been shown that variability of gait parameters
may best predict balance disorders and risk of falls in older adults (e.g.,
Ambrose, Paul, & Hausdorff, 2013; Barrett, Mills, & Begg, 2010).
Fourthly, the sample size as well as the heterogeneity and large
amount of dependent variables collected to assess physical performance
prevented us from using more detailed analyses (e.g., structural equa-
tion modelling). In particular, we were not able to examine whether the
change in physical subjective age was attributable to the instructions
given (high- vs. low-threat) or to the general (or even specific) per-
formance of older adults in the different physical tasks. Similarly, ac-
cording to previous studies, it is also possible that beliefs about one’s
performance, rather actual performance, have influenced subjective
age. It has been shown in experimental studies that experiencing sen-
sory impairment contributes to a subjective feeling of being older
(Eibach et al., 2010). Moreover, Stephan et al. (2013) found that older
adults feel younger than their age when they are told that they are
stronger than their same-aged peers in a grip strength task. Therefore,
relationships between actual and perceived physical performance as
well as subjective age should be investigated in further studies.
5. Conclusion
The present study extended previous research by examining the
effects of stereotype threat on older adults’ physical performance and
subjective age. The effects of threat on the different tests and physical
performance parameters we used, which can be associated with balance
disorders among older adults, were mostly not significant. However, we
found a stronger effect of threat on subjective age. Participants exposed
to negative-age-related information regarding their physical aging felt
mentally and physically older compared to participants in a control
condition. Since feeling older is associated with different negative
health-related outcomes over time, it is important to consider the im-
pact of age stereotypes on subjective age in experimental and clinical
settings. These results also raise the question whether preventative
campaigns aimed at preventing older adults from falling could induce
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Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 78 (2018) 181–189
negative age stereotypes and lead them to feel older. If the case, it
would be necessary to consider effective ways to communicate in-
formation about balance disorders and risk of falls during aging without
inducing negative age stereotypes.
Conflicts of interest
All authors of this article have no competing interests.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research
(F. R. S. – FNRS) to Manon Marquet (Research Fellow).
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