Based on previous research on implicit effects on effort-related cardiovascular response and evidence that aging is associated with cognitive difficulties, we tested whether the mere activation of the aging stereotype can sys- tematically influence young individuals' effort-mobilization during cognitive performance. Young participants performed an objectively difficult short-termmemory task duringwhich they processed elderly vs. youth primes and expected lowvs. high incentive for success.When participants processed elderly primes during the task,we expected cardiovascular response to be weak in the low-incentive condition and strong in the high-incentive condition. Unaffected by incentive, effort in the youth-prime condition should fall in between the two elderly- prime cells. Effects on cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) and heart rate (HR) largely supported these predictions. The present findings show for the first time that the mere activation of the aging stereotype can systematically influence effortmobilization during cognitive performance—even in young adults.