Stereotypes of the Elderly Held by Young, Middle-Aged, and Elderly Adults

Abstract

This two-part study extended the research on multiple stereotypes of elderly adults by examining the perceptions of young, middle-aged, and elderly adults. First, one set of participants engaged in a trait generation task which yielded a trait list for use in the second part of the study. Second, other participants sorted the set of traits into groups representing different types of elderly individuals. Trait groupings were analyzed with hierarchical cluster analysis. Results supported the hypothesis that older adults have more complex representations of aging than do middle-aged and young ones, and that middle-aged adults have more complex representations than do young ones. For example, middle-aged and elderly adults reported more stereotypes of the elderly than did young adults, and elderly adults reported more stereotypes than did middle-aged adults. Results also showed, as expected, that these differences in complexity exist against a background of general agreement about the nature of aging: Trait lists produced by those in the three age groups were significantly correlated, and the stereotype sets of the three age groups included seven shared stereotypes. Results are interpreted in terms of their support for two alternative explanations of the complexity differences: ingroup/outgroup and developmental.

Multiple standards of aging: gender-specific age stereotypes in different life domains

“…However, it may also be the case that for younger participants, age was the most relevant category in the ratings, overshadowing any moderating effect of gender on the perceptions of older persons that might be prevalent in a certain domain (Kite et al 1991). This is supported by studies showing that older persons have more differentiated age stereotypes, which might also apply to the ratings of older men and women (Hummert et al 1994). However, the fact that even the younger participants did show gender differences in the social domains, and that some of these gender differences were also found when comparing the ratings of older men and women with their middle-aged counterparts, speaks more in favor of the first explanation, i.e., the softening of gendered age stereotypes in certain domains.…”

Intergenerational Support and the Role of Grandparents in Post-Divorce Families: Retrospective Accounts of Young Adult Grandchildren

“…In emerging as the most frequently cited type of support, the empathic grandmother demonstrates that grandparents can be an important source for coping and comforting during this family transition. The fact that grandchildren rarely had to ask for this type of support demonstrates that it may be an expected role in this relationship (i.e., perfect grandparent stereotype; see Hummert, Garstka, Shaner, & Strahm, 1994). Because this type of support is nearly always a grandmother and is typically provided by a grandparent with whom the grandchild is emotionally close, it also demonstrates that this emotionally supportive role is based on the relationship, not simply the family position.…”

How Feelings of Stereotype Threat Influence Older Adults' Memory Performance

“…For example, several studies have shown that people expect memory declines to occur with age (e.g., Heckhausen, Dixon, & Baltes, 1989;Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000;Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998;Ryan, 1992;Ryan & Kwong See, 1993), and stereotypes of aging held by both young and older adults include perceptions of decreased competence and increasing forgetfulness (Chasteen, 2000;Chasteen, Schwarz, & Park, 2002;Erber, 1989;Hummert, Garstka, Shaner, & Strahm, 1994;Kite & Johnson, 1988;Schmidt & Boland, 1986). Levy and her colleagues have shown that negative views of aging mediate the relation between culture and memory performance in older adults (Levy & Langer, 1994; but see Yoon, Hasher, Feinberg, Rahhal, & Winocur, 2000), and that subliminal exposure to negative aging stereotypes worsens older adults' memory performance (Levy, 1996;Stein, Blanchard-Fields, & Hertzog, 2002).…”