Prospective memory tasks related to goals and concerns are rated as more important by both young and older adults

Penningroth, Suzanna L.; Scott, Walter Dill · 2013 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1007/s10433-013-0265-9

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Summary

This study investigates the motivational-cognitive model of prospective memory, specifically testing the hypothesis that prospective memory tasks (intentions to perform future actions) are perceived as more important when they are highly related to an individual’s personal goals and concerns. While prior research established that task importance enhances prospective memory performance, few studies examined the variables driving these importance ratings for real-life tasks. The authors aimed to determine if goal-relevance predicts higher importance ratings and whether this relationship holds across different age groups, addressing a gap in literature that often relied on experimenter-assigned tasks rather than naturalistic ones. The researchers administered a questionnaire to 110 healthy adults divided into three groups: young college students (n=45), young nonstudents (n=24), and older adults (n=41). Participants listed five current prospective memory tasks, rated their importance on a 5-point scale, and listed up to four personal goals and four concerns. They then indicated whether each task was related to specific goal or concern categories (e.g., health, occupation, education). Tasks were classified as "highly goal-related" or "highly concern-related" if the participant linked the task to a category in which they had also listed a personal goal or concern. This design allowed for a within-subjects comparison of importance ratings for goal/concern-related versus unrelated tasks. The results confirmed the primary prediction: prospective memory tasks highly related to personal goals were rated as significantly more important (M = 4.27) than those not highly related to goals (M = 3.74). This effect was consistent across all three participant subgroups, with no significant interaction between goal-relatedness and age group. Similarly, tasks highly related to personal concerns were rated as more important than unrelated tasks. Regarding demographic differences, young nonstudents rated their prospective memory tasks as less important overall than both young college students and older adults. Additionally, females across all groups provided higher importance ratings than males. There were no significant differences in importance ratings between young college students and older adults. These findings support the motivational-cognitive model of prospective memory, demonstrating that the perceived importance of a prospective memory task is partly determined by its relevance to active personal goals and concerns. The study highlights that this motivational link is robust across age groups, suggesting that goal-relatedness is a universal factor in how individuals prioritize future intentions. The results imply that interventions aimed at improving prospective memory, particularly in older adults, might benefit from explicitly linking tasks to personal goals. Furthermore, the distinction between young students and nonstudents suggests that educational context or associated motivational factors may influence the baseline importance assigned to everyday tasks.

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• prospective memory interruptions