Participants 241 residents of a Midwestern community, randomly selected from a phonebook

1. Aging and Interdependence Michael E. W. Varnum, Igor Grossmann, Jinkyung Na, ShinobuKitayama, & Richard E. Nisbett Department of Psychology Age and social orientation • Materials • Structural variables • Social Network Task (Carstensen & Lang, 1994): • Inner network density • Network quality • Number of friends • Psychological variables • Inclusion of Other in Self scale (IOSS) • closeness to others across 5 items (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992) • Twenty-Statement Task: I am… • relational /collective vs. personal identities listed (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954) • Vocal Stroop • Vocal tone vs. word meaning interference (RT; Kitayama, & Ishii, 2002) • Implicit Social Orientation Questionnaire (Kitayama & Park, 2008): • Do social vs. non-social emotions predict happiness? • Intensity of social vs. non-social emotions • Sociogram of social network (Duffy, Uchida, & Kitayama, 2008) : • Ego-inflation: size of self vs. size of others • Ego-centrality • Use of “we” vs. “I” pronouns in social interactions • (LIWC; Slatcher, Vazire, & Pennebaker, 2008) • Self-construal scale (Singelis, 1994) • Background • Cultures differ in Social Orientation (S.O.): • East Asians are more interdependent, Westerners are more independent (Triandis, 1989; Markus & Kitayama, 1991) • Parallel differences between Eastern Europe and the West, regions in Japan, Italy, and Turkey (Varnum, Grossmann, Kitayama, & Nisbett, in press) • As Westerners age they may become more interdependent: • Life-long socialization hypothesis • Alternatively, they may become more interdependent: • Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999): aging  shortened time perspective focus on maximizing positive interactions with others  smaller, tighter, higher quality social networks  increased interdependence Fig 1. Social network task • β = .21*** Δ R2 = .06 Fig 2. IOSS scale • Conclusions • Aging is associated with greater interdependence, which is consistent with the socio-emotional-selectivity theory • Both on structural and psychological variables • Future Directions: • What is the relationship between age and cognitive style?  poster # 38 in this session • Is this the case in Interdependent societies (i.e. Japan)? Present study We examined the effect of aging on social orientation using a large battery of tasks, which have previously been used in cross-cultural and interpersonal relations research to measure social orientation. Fig 3. Sociogram †p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p <.001. Literature Research Question Is aging is positively associated with independence or interdependence? Should be true for direct measures of S.O. as well as structural measures of social networks Carstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M., Charles, S. T. (1999). Taking time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. American Psychologist , 54, 165-181. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psych Review, 98, 224-253. Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psych Review 96, 269-289. Varnum, M. E. W., Grossmann, I., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R.E (in press). The origin of cultural differences in cognition: The social orientation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psych Science. • Participants • 241 residents of a Midwestern community, randomly selected from a phonebook • matched by education/ gender / age Contact Michael E. W. Varnum Department of Psychology, University of Michigan 530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI mvarnum@umich.edu Poster presented at the 21st annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science. San Francisco, CA, May, 2009.