Do Beliefs That Older Adults Are Inflexible Serve as a Barrier to Racial Equality?

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated that older adults are stereotyped as less malleable than young adults. Moreover, beliefs that people are less malleable are associated with lower confrontations of prejudice, as perpetrators are seen as less capable of changing their (prejudiced) behavior. The present research sought to integrate these lines of research to demonstrate that endorsement of ageist beliefs that older adults are less malleable will lead to a lower confrontation of anti-Black prejudice espoused by older adults. Across four experimental studies ( N = 1,573), people were less likely to confront anti-Black prejudice espoused by an 82-year-old compared with a 62-, 42-, or 20-year-old, due, in part, to beliefs that older adults are less malleable. Further exploration demonstrated that malleability beliefs about older adults were held across young, middle-aged, and older adult samples. These findings demonstrate how stereotypes about older adults can impede racial equality.

Black Americans suppress emotions when prejudice is believed to stem from shared ignorance

“…LTPs need not be singularly endorsed. While LTPs represent general beliefs, such beliefs can be flexible in response to varied situations and targets ( Neel and Lassetter, 2015 ; Chaney and Chasteen, 2023 ). For example, people may view some discrimination as originating from one source (e.g., hate crimes may be viewed as stemming from malice), while other discrimination forms as originating from a separate source (e.g., microaggressions may be viewed as stemming from shared ignorance).…”