Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), an influential life-span theory, suggests that older adults prefer persuasive messages that appeal to emotionally-meaningful goals over messages that appeal to knowledge-related goals, whereas younger adults do not show this preference. A mixed-factorial experiment was conducted to test whether older adults (≥65 years) differ from younger adults (25–45 years) in their preference for emotionally-meaningful appeals over knowledge-related appeals, when appeals are clearly developed in line with SST. For older adults we found the expected preference for emotionally-meaningful appeals for cancer centers but not for grocery stores and travel organizations. As expected, in most cases, younger adults did not show a preference. Implications for SST-based communication research and for practice are discussed.

中文翻译：

---

情感意义诉求与知识相关诉求偏好的年龄差异

社会情感选择性理论 (SST) 是一种有影响力的寿命理论，它表明老年人更喜欢吸引情感上有意义的目标的有说服力的信息，而不是吸引知识相关目标的信息，而年轻人没有表现出这种偏好。进行了一项混合因素实验，以测试老年人（≥65 岁）与年轻人（25​​-45 岁）在情感上有意义的诉求比知识相关诉求上的偏好是否不同，当诉求明显符合 SST 时. 对于老年人，我们发现癌症中心对情感上有意义的诉求的预期偏好，而不是杂货店和旅游组织。正如预期的那样，在大多数情况下，年轻人并没有表现出偏好。讨论了对基于 SST 的传播研究和实践的影响。