Table 1.
Means (M), standard deviations (SD), and range for demographic, health, attachment, and cognitive measures in young and older men and women
| Measures | Young Male (n = 27) | Young Female (n = 22) | Older Male (n = 23) | Older Female (n = 29) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | SD | Range | M | SD | Range | M | SD | Range | M | SD | Range | |
| Demographics | ||||||||||||
| Age (yrs.) | 22.1 | 2.91 | 18–31 | 22.9 | 3.22 | 18–30 | 72.4 | 5.11 | 63–81 | 70.5 | 4.60 | 63–80 |
| Education (yrs.) | 15.1 | 1.71 | 12–19 | 16.1 | 2.98 | 12–22 | 16.6 | 3.23 | 12–25 | 16.2 | 3.03 | 10–23 |
| Health | ||||||||||||
| Mental | 8.7 | 1.20 | 5–10 | 8.3 | 1.21 | 6–10 | 8.9 | 0.87 | 7–10 | 8.8 | 1.43 | 3–10 |
| Physical | 8.7 | 0.98 | 6–10 | 8.3 | 1.32 | 6–10 | 8.4 | 1.07 | 6–10 | 8.4 | 1.12 | 5–10 |
| Attachment | ||||||||||||
| ECR-S Anxiety | 2.8 | 1.05 | 1.0–5.0 | 3.4 | 1.21 | 1.3–5.3 | 2.4 | 0.92 | 1.0–4.7 | 2.6 | 1.06 | 1.0–5.8 |
| ECR-S Avoidance | 2.4 | 1.11 | 1.0–5.2 | 2.2 | 0.87 | 1.0–4.0 | 2.3 | 1.03 | 1.0–4.8 | 2.5 | 1.45 | 1.0–6.5 |
| Cognition | ||||||||||||
| Digit Symbol | 63.9 | 9.48 | 44–84 | 64.0 | 10.53 | 51–93 | 42.7 | 5.12 | 34–52 | 46.3 | 10.46 | 19–62 |
| RAVLT | 9.0 | 2.35 | 5–14 | 9.0 | 1.36 | 7–12 | 6.8 | 2.25 | 4–12 | 8.0 | 2.55 | 4–14 |
Note. Excluded from data analysis were two young women in their follicular menstrual cycle and one older man and one older woman on hormone replacement therapy. Mental (Please rate your general physical health.) and physical (Please rate your general mental health/mood.) health were assessed with single items on a response scale from 1 = poor to 10 = excellent. ECR-S = Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (short form; Wei et al., 2007); one young woman did not respond to the ECR-S, reducing the subsample size to 21 for this measure. Digit Symbol = Digit Symbol Substitution Test (Wechsler, 1981); RAVLT = Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (Rey, 1964). There were no differences between the sex-by-age subgroups in years of education, mental or physical self-reported health, or attachment avoidance. However, young compared to older participants (F(1,96) = 8.2, p = 0.005, ηp2 = 0.079) and, marginally, women compared to men reported more attachment anxiety (F(1,96) = 3.6, p = 0.059, ηp2 = 0.037). Also, young participants outperformed older participants in sensorimotor processing speed (F(1,97) = 110.0, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.531) and short-term verbal learning memory (F(1,97) = 16.3, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.143).