Prospective memory is memory for recollecting intentions, plans, promises, and
agreements. Individuals' performance on tasks requiring prospective memory varies a
great deal. We explored whether some of this variability stems from individual
differences in personality and demands of the environment. As a secondary objective
we explored whether the age-related changes in prospective memory performance that
have previously been attributed to declining cognitive resources can also be explained
by age-related differences in personality and demands of the environment. Participants
were community-dwelling healthy individuals (n = 141) between 18 and 81 years of
age. Participants completed three different prospective memory tasks. Two of these
tasks were lab-based - the intention had to be executed in the laboratory, while the
third was field-based - the intention had to be executed in the context of the
participants' daily life and activities. Participants also completed various indicators of
personality, demands of the environment, and cognitive ability. The results indicated
that personality and demands of the environment reliably predicted who will succeed
and who will fail on all three prospective memory tasks. However, the best predictors of
performance varied across the three prospective memory tasks. Specifically,
conscientiousness predicted performance on the field task and one of the lab tasks
while socially prescribed perfectionism and neuroticism each predicted performance on
one of the lab tasks. Accordingly, the influence of personality and demands of the
environment on the relationship between age and prospective memory performance
also varied across the three tasks. On some prospective memory tasks age-related
differences in personality and demands of the environment compounded with older
adults' declining cognitive resources to impair prospective memory performance while
on other tasks they acted as a partial or a complete buffer against these declining
cognitive resources.Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofGraduat