Benevolent ageism: Attitudes of overaccommodative behavior toward older women

Ageism and Behavior Change During a Health Pandemic: A Preregistered Study

“…While the nature of this study relies on unique experiences during the pandemic, the implications from these findings generalize beyond this limited scope to other everyday contexts where older adult stereotypes influence behavior. Some examples include: having less willingness to have social interactions with older people (Cadieux et al, 2019), giving poorer service to older adults (Chasteen et al, 2020), recognizing symptoms of depression as normal signs of aging (Smith and Meeks, 2019), making assumptions of physical abilities of older adults and offering unwanted help (Vale et al, 2019), use of patronizing speech that assumes cognitive decline (Kemper, 1994), and even feelings of endearment enacted because of pity (Cuddy et al, 2005;Cherry and Palmore, 2008). These everyday behaviors are directed toward older adults, but little is known about the consequences they have for older adults and how they are preceded by the individual's own ageist attitudes.…”

“…As a response to the pandemic, the Gerontology Society of America (2020) released an Ageism First Aid multimodule course to recognize ageism in the health and helping professions. Other researchers also have recently attempted to demonstrate that ageism can be attenuated through educational interventions, intergenerational contact, and correcting the paternalistic stereotypes (Levy, 2018;Burnes et al, 2019;Cadieux et al, 2019;Vale et al, 2019). Less is known on how to implement these findings on a larger scale, but these programs and efforts are needed, especially given that the responses to this pandemic have reinforced traditional ageist ideology.…”

“…Ageism refers to the prejudice directed at people because of their perceived age and covers the multilayered configuration of stereotypes and discrimination directed toward older adults (Nelson, 2016;Cary et al, 2017). Classic definitions of ageism stipulate that older people are viewed in an undesirable fashion; however, attitudes toward older adults are more complex and are similar to sexist depictions of women, such that they both fit the paternalistic stereotype and are simultaneously viewed as being warm, but incompetent, resulting in both hostile and benevolent forms of prejudice (Fiske et al, 2002;Cary et al, 2017;Vale et al, 2019). Negative depictions of older people (e.g., older people are incompetent) often provoke exclusion (Cuddy et al, 2007) and hostile attitudes (Cary et al, 2017); meanwhile, favorable representations (e.g., older people are warm) incite well-intended benevolent responses, such as giving unnecessary assistance (Cuddy et al, 2005;Cary et al, 2017).…”

“…However, an important division is that benevolence is present when incompetence is inferred and/or the autonomy of older adults is undermined (Cary et al, 2017). In fact, benevolent acts, such as overaccommodative assistance, have been found to be more acceptable when they were directed at an older rather than younger woman (Vale et al, 2019). Therefore, it is important to distinguish these different patterns of ageism, as the great majority of ageism research has a narrow focus on hostile perceptions, despite evidence that benevolent acts of ageism are more commonly and insidiously endorsed (Cherry and Palmore, 2008;Chonody, 2016;Cary et al, 2017;Vale et al, 2019).…”

Improving the Language of Designing for Ageing

“…Compared to other forms of more explicit or intentional discrimination -such as racism or sexism -implicit ageism is rarely sanctioned by society. Furthermore, the presence of benevolent ageism [14,53] makes it difficult to understand when it is perpetuated. A clear example of how ageist perspectives can be tolerated and perpetuated is in using ageist birthday cards [24] -e.g.…”