Colorado College Bulletin

Chalk it up to Experience

By REBECCA BRANT

Some were concerned about money, others good looks. Still others wanted more excitement. But at least they agreed on one thing - kindness is the most important.

That's what CC psychology students in Cathey Weir's "Lifespan Development " class discovered when they questioned members of Colorado College's 50 Year Club, a group of alumni who graduated 50 or more years ago. Weir's students compare responses from themselves to those of senior adults on a variety of tests -- giving definitions for a list of words, reading a list of color words printed in the wrong color, and ranking the importance of characteristics of the ideal spouse.

"People don't stop developing just because they reach 18," says Weir, a 1965 CC graduate. "We're in an aging society, and my field is to study what happens differently over the lifespan in physical development, cognitive development, and social-emotional development."

The "diabolical" color word test involves a list of incongruent color words -- "red" printed in green, "purple" printed in blue, etc. "What you have to do," Weir explains, "is ignore the well-learned habit of reading in order to read the ink color."

When presented with a series of Xs in various colors, it takes students about 60 seconds and seniors about 90 to identify ink color. Replace the Xs with color words and both groups took longer to finish the list -- students 50 percent longer and seniors 100 percent longer, or double their original time.

But replace the Xs with words spelled backwards -- "der" for "red," "neerg" for "green" -- and seniors could get through the list in a little more time than they needed for the colored Xs. Students, on the other hand, required nearly 25 percent more time.

"These results lead us to one of the questions of cognitive development in older adulthood," Weir explains. "Is there a general deficit, so that maybe your neurons aren't firing as quickly and everything you do is going to be damped down? Or is the problem specific -- if you have trouble with your vision, you don't get the information in as quickly, but once you get it in to your nervous system, you're fine."

Weir believes the difference in students' and seniors' results is a matter of experience. "As we go from new readers to college readers to senior readers -- as you gain more experience -- you seem to be able to block out non-words," she writes in a paper in Psychology and Aging titled "Are Backward Words Special for Older Adults?" Reading experience also paid off for the seniors in the vocabulary test.

In spite of the edge of experience their extra years provide, seniors are often suspicious that researchers are trying to "show them up" with word tests, Weir says. They have more fun with what Weir describes as a "social test," one in which both students and seniors use a scale of 1 to 10 to rate preferred characteristics of an ideal spouse at the respondent's current stage of life.

Characteristics to rank were the following, in alphabetical order: adaptability, agreeable, college graduate, creativity, desire for children, exciting personality, good earning capacity, good health, good heredity, good housekeeper, intelligence, kindness and understanding, physical attractiveness, religious orientation, similar age, strong lead.

Differences, Weir believes, are based on both age and gender. Previous research showed women are more concerned about earning capacity, men about physical attractiveness. The theory behind this result, Weir explains, is evolutionary psychology -- men choose mates based on their ability to produce offspring, women choose based on their mate's ability to provide nurturance for their young.

The only gender difference found in the lab class was physical attractiveness. Men noted this higher than women. Earning capacity was not different as a prefeered characteristic for young women and men. Older women, however, rated it more important than the older men.

The central question in the lab class is whether those evolutionary tendencies change as we age. "Evolutionary theory may be driven by our hormones to ensure the future of the species, and it is possible our hormonal balances help shape our preferences. So we should see a bigger difference between younger and older women than we do in men," Weir explains. "But if culture is critical, we should see the seniors having similar cultural preferences and the students have similar cultural preferences, and the breakdown should be on age rather than anything to do with hormones. The one that jumps out," she continues, "is health."

Good health is much more important to the seniors, a result Weir speculates stems from seniors' own health-related issues. "Good health," she says, "is a good sign that a person is going to have a sense of humor and other attractive characteristics."

As for being a good housekeeper, "The students think that's hilarious," Weir says, "but the seniors take it more seriously because I think a lot of people end up in fights with partners over who's neat and who's a slob. They don't think it's quite as silly as the students do."

Always looking for different senior adults to test, Weir has taken her classes to various retirement and senior centers in Colorado Springs. Then she thought of the 50 Year Club. "Cathey approached us about inviting 50 Year Club members for her research project," says Rachelle Latimer '93, former alumni relations officer now working in the development office. "Our initial reaction was 'Great! Alumni enjoy meeting students.' All agreed it was a great opportunity for alumni to help students with a class project. In fact, one alumnus said it was the best thing he had ever done with CC -- and he attends a lot of CC events."

Weir and her class invited the alumni for lunch on campus -- a potluck provided by the students. "It was hilarious," Weir laughs, remembering the sight. "The students brought in chips and salsa and bean dips. These items are probably not on the seniors' list of most loved food. We did get one tray of sandwiches, so at least there was enough to eat."

And while chatting over "lunch" may not have resulted in groundbreaking psychological revelations, it was rewarding for all involved.

Both groups enjoyed hearing about life at Colorado College, then and now. Some have even struck up lasting friendships. "A lot of the seniors are very active," Weir says. "In one class, a student and a senior found out both their routines involve running. Now they run together twice a week.

"A lot of our students haven't had much exposure to older adults," Weir continues. "Nowadays, families move around so much, and it's rare to be around your grandparents. So, part of my aim is the informal interaction, to make sure that the students realize that older adults are not so different from themselves."

Back to Index