Antecedents and Consequences of Endorsing Prescriptive Views of Active Aging and Altruistic Disengagement

Abstract

In this study, we investigated endorsement of two types of prescriptive views of aging, namely active aging (e.g., prescriptions for older adults to stay fit and healthy and to maintain an active and productive lifestyle) and altruistic disengagement (e.g., prescriptions for older adults to behave altruistically toward the younger generation by granting young people access to positions and resources). The study comprised a large international sample of middle-aged and older adults (N = 2,900), covering the age range from 40 to 90 years. Participants rated their personal endorsement of prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement targeting older adults in general (i.e., “In my personal opinion, older adults should…”). Findings showed that endorsement was higher for prescriptions for active aging than for prescriptions for altruistic disengagement. Age groups in the sample differed regarding their endorsement of both prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement with older adults showing higher endorsement than middle-aged adults did. Prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement related positively to each other and to the superordinate social belief that older adults should not become a burden, which attests to their functional similarity. In contrast, prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement were associated with psychological adjustment in opposite ways, with endorsement of active aging (vs. altruistic disengagement) being related to better (vs. worse) adjustment outcomes such as life satisfaction and subjective health. Our findings highlight the internalization of prescriptive views of aging in older people and their implications for their development and well-being.

Age Specificity in Explicit and Implicit Endorsement of Prescriptive Age Stereotypes

“…We had two main goals in this study: on the one hand we wanted to investigate explicit and implicit endorsement of prescriptive age stereotypes. Past studies that explored prescriptive age stereotypes focused on their explicit endorsement only ( North and Fiske, 2012 , 2013a , b ; Pavlova and Silbereisen, 2012 ; Koenig, 2018 ; de Paula Couto et al, 2022 ). Our goal was therefore to advance the knowledge about endorsement of age-based prescriptions by employing the PEP ( Müller and Rothermund, 2019 ), which is an indirect measure that allows for the assessment of complex propositional beliefs.…”

“…The available explicit measures that address prescriptive age stereotypes focus on prescriptions targeting older adults only, and on specific prescriptions, namely, altruistic disengagement and activation ( North and Fiske, 2012 ; Pavlova and Silbereisen, 2012 ; de Paula Couto et al, 2022 ). For that reason, we set ourselves to develop materials that could: (1) target both younger and older people, and (2) cover the different types of prescriptions we were interested.…”

“…More recently, researchers have advanced the idea that beliefs about age groups also reflect social expectations about how people of certain ages should behave (e.g., North and Fiske, 2012 ; Pavlova and Silbereisen, 2012 ; de Paula Couto et al, 2022 ; de Paula Couto and Rothermund, in press ). This research centers on prescriptive beliefs that set expectations that older people should altruistically make way for younger people, use resources moderately, and act their own age, reflecting the prescriptive domains of succession, consumption, and identity, respectively ( North and Fiske, 2012 , 2013a ).…”

“…Whether the same pattern of (low) correlations also characterizes the relation between explicit and implicit endorsement of prescriptive age stereotypes remains an open question. This is because regarding prescriptive age stereotypes, past research has focused exclusively on their explicit endorsement (e.g., Pavlova and Silbereisen, 2012 ; North and Fiske, 2013a ; de Paula Couto et al, 2022 ). In methodological terms, this means that explicit assessments of the endorsement of prescriptive age stereotypes have only been carried out with tools that allow for influences of self-presentation and are sensitive to social desirability.…”

Endorsement and embodiment of cautiousness-related age stereotypes

“… De Houwer et al, 2015 ). For instance, an association between “old” and “cautious” can reflect the proposition that “old people are cautious,” but can also reflect the prescriptive belief that “old people should be cautious” (e.g., de Paula Couto et al, 2022a ; see also de Paula Couto et al, 2022b ). On the other hand, simple associative relations between the category “old” and specific attributes (e.g., old—slow, old—experienced) have been shown to be extremely fragile and unreliable, with simple category primes being unable to elicit an activation of specific attributes ( Casper et al, 2011 ; Huang and Rothermund, in press ; Müller and Rothermund, 2014 ; see Kidder et al, 2018 , for a review).…”