Psychoneuroendocrinological indicators of stress and intellectual performance among older adults: An exploratory study

For an exploration of the relationship between task-specific anxiety and intellectual performance, 26 community-dwelling older adults were asked to perform a series of cognitive tasks to assess crystallized (Gc) and fluid (Gf) intellectual abilities. The volunteers then completed questionnaires concerning their beliefs about their task performance specific to each ability, as well as measures of both generalized and intellectual self-efficacy, everyday cognitive failures, and trait and state anxiety. Cortisol levels were assessed as a physiologic indicator of task anxiety, and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) levels were measured to reflect nonspecific physiological changes. With trait anxiety taken into consideration, significant negative correlations were seen between cortisol levels and performance on all tasks measuring primarily fluid abilities, as well as between cortisol levels and self-efficacy concerning tasks measuring primarily crystallized abilities. EBV levels were not correlated with any of the task-specific measures, except for Letter Sets performance. These preliminary findings confirm that older persons' concerns about their task performance are indeed stressful when measured physiologically, apart from indicators of self-reported stress.