Race Differences in Intellectual Control Beliefs and Cognitive Functioning

Background/Study Context: The current study examined the relationship between intellectual control and cognition and related the results to everyday problem solving in a mixed ethnicity sample of 35% African American and 65% Caucasian elders. Methods: Participants completed the Personality in Intellectual Aging Contexts Inventory (PIC; Lachman et al., 1982 Lachman , M. E. , Baltes , P. B. , Nesselroade , J. R. , & Willis , S. L. ( 1982 ). Examination of personality–ability relaltionships in the elderly: The role of contextual (interface) assessment mode . Journal of Research in Personality , 16 , 485 – 501 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Journal of Research in Personality, 16, 485–501), Everyday Cognition Battery (ECB; Allaire & Marsiske, 1999 Allaire , J. C. , & Marsiske , M. ( 1999 ). Everyday cognition: Age and intellectual ability correlates . Psychology & Aging , 14 , 627 – 644 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Psychology & Aging, 14, 627–644; 2002 Allaire , J. C. , & Marsiske , M. ( 2002 ). Well- and ill-defined measures of everyday cognition: Relationship to older adults’ intellectual ability and functional status . Psychology & Aging , 17 , 101 – 115 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Psychology & Aging, 17, 101–115), and a battery of basic cognitive ability tests assessing memory, inductive reasoning, and verbal meaning. Results: Results indicated that African Americans had significantly lower intellectual control beliefs relative to Caucasian older adults. Regression models suggested that relationship between control beliefs and cognition was moderated by education and race. Decomposing the interactions with simple slope analysis revealed that across cognitive abilities, better cognitive performance was related to higher control beliefs in African Americans with at least 13 years of education. A similar relationship was also found in Caucasian elders with lower education. Conclusion: African American elders’ reaching a higher level of education may provide a basis for which individual differences in intellectual control beliefs are activated and thereby more strongly associated with cognitive performance.