IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v75y2020i8pe198-e203..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When Culture Influences Genes: Positive Age Beliefs Amplify the Cognitive-Aging Benefit of APOE ε2

Author

Listed:
  • Becca R Levy
  • Martin D SladeMPH
  • Robert H Pietrzak
  • Luigi Ferrucci
  • Angela Gutchess

Abstract

ObjectivesMost studies of aging cognition have focused on risk factors for worse performance and on either genetic or environmental factors. In contrast, we examined whether 2 factors known to individually benefit aging cognition may interact to produce better cognition: environment-based positive age beliefs and the APOE ε2 gene.MethodThe sample consisted of 3,895 Health and Retirement Study participants who were 60 years or older at baseline and completed as many as 5 assessments of cognition over 8 years.ResultsAs predicted, positive age beliefs amplified the cognitive benefit of APOE ε2. In contrast, negative age beliefs suppressed the cognitive benefit of APOE ε2. We also found that positive age beliefs contributed nearly 15 times more than APOE ε2 to better cognition.DiscussionThis study provides the first known evidence that self-perceptions can influence the impact of a gene on cognition. The results underscore the importance of combined psychosocial and biological approaches to understanding cognitive function in older adults.

Suggested Citation

  • Becca R Levy & Martin D SladeMPH & Robert H Pietrzak & Luigi Ferrucci & Angela Gutchess, 2020. "When Culture Influences Genes: Positive Age Beliefs Amplify the Cognitive-Aging Benefit of APOE ε2," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(8), pages 198-203.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:8:p:e198-e203.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaa126
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:8:p:e198-e203.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.