Different Ways of Perceiving the Aging Process: Social Behaviors of Women and Men in Relation to Age Discrimination

doi:10.4236/psych.2013.43A041

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Psychology

2013. Vol.4, No.3A, 279-282

Published Online March 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/psych) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2013.43A041

Different Ways of Perceiving the Aging Process: Social Behaviors

of Women and Men in Relation to Age Discrimination

Alfonso J. García, Yolanda Troyano

Department Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Seville, Spain

Email: [email protected]

Received December 21st, 20 1 2; revised January 19th, 2013; accepted February 17th, 2013

Based on the original survey “Relating to Older People Evaluation” (ROPE) by Cherry and Palmore

(2008), we have elaborated the instrument Evaluation for Older Adults that consists of 20 items. In this

project, we intend on studying the positive and negative behaviors which people have been able to inter-

nalize during their daily life, as well as a previous psychometric analysis about the validity of the instru-

ment. The sample is formed by, on one side, students of Psycho pedagogy, and the other side, older stu-

dents that belong to the Class of Experience of the University of Seville. The results obtained suggest that

the majority of the people take into consideration the positive behaviors, and both the young and the older

adults reinforce the behaviors of and toward the older adults. It is important to highlight the significant

differences as far as gender in relation to the internalization of positive behaviors, being more frequent in

women than in men. In the discussion, we analyze the implications about social perception towards older

people as a social phenomenon, as well as the strategies to reduce the negative behaviors towards older

people in daily life.

Keywords: Older People; Young People; Social Perception; Discrimination

Introduction

The majority of people are familiar with the concept of age

discrimination, which refers to any type of prejudice or dis-

crimination based on chronological age. Butler (1969) was the

first to coin this term; and since then, a wide range of experi-

mental evidence documents the frequent and generalized pres-

ence of studies about discrimination based on reasons of age in

our society today (Palmore, 1999, 2001). From a psychosocial

perspective, age can also influence implicit beliefs related to the

competency of older persons, as well as the configuration of

stereotypes (Levy, 2001). Most authors agree that we live in a

society oriented towards the youth, where the diverse ways of

discrimination based on reasons of age are widespread (Kel-

chner, 1999; Palmore, Branch, & Harris 2006). In fact, many

perceived behaviors such as demonstrating courtesy towards

older persons can be precisely manifestations of discrimination,

based on the expression of stereotypical attitudes (Palmore,

1999).

The purpose of the present study is to develop a profile of

older persons in relation to the positive and negative behaviors

that are manifested towards them during their daily life. In the

scientific literature, various investigations about age discrimi-

nation can be found, such as a scale that measures attitudes

towards older persons (Kogan, 1961); or the Semantic Differen-

tial about Aging (Rosecranz & McNevin, 1969). Recently, a

questionnaire has been elaborated in order to measure the

prejudice beliefs and the discrimination towards older persons

(Palmore, 2001). This way, it can be demonstrated the impor-

tance of taking into account the incidence and the prevalence of

age discrimination in society in general.

In this way a cross-sectional study examined the associations

among perceived vulnerability to disease, aging knowledge,

and ageism (positive and negative) in a sample of undergradu-

ate students enrolled in a human development course. Perceived

vulnerability to disease and aging knowledge were associated

with self-reported ageist behaviors. Undergraduates who view-

ed themselves as more susceptible to disease and knew less

about the aging process tended to report more negative ageist

behavior. Sex moderated the association between aging knowl-

edge and ageist behavior, indicating the association was

stronger for males (Stahl & Metzger, 2012).

Other study is focused on self-reported ageism in college

students and social service providers using the Relating to

Older People Evaluation (Cherry & Palmore, 2008). Partici-

pants included undergraduate and graduate social work students

and practicing social service providers in the nursing home and

mental health setting. Findings indicate that people of varying

educational backgrounds and occupational experience in social

services readily admit to positive ageist behaviors. Item analy-

ses revealed similarities and differences between groups in the

most and least frequent forms of ageism endorsed (Allen,

Cherry, & Palmore, 2009).

In this article, we present an analysis of the frequency and

the types of behaviors towards older persons in general. The

used survey contains 20 types of behaviors related to older

people: 6 items deal with age discrimination in a positive sense

and 14 are negative. As an example, many items are included,

such as: “Maintains the door open for older people as a result of

their age;” or “Votes for an older person due to his or her age”.

In a negative sense, we emphasize for example: “Wishes happy

birthday to older persons in order to joke about their age”; or

“Votes against an older person as a result of his or her age”.

Palmore elaborates the topics.

The questionnaire is designed to measure the discrimination

of older people in the personal sphere (negative or positive).

A. J. GARCÍA, Y. TROYANO

The distinction between negative and positive is based on Pal-

more’s (1999) conceptual characteristics of reasons for age

discrimination. In general, elderly age discrimination in the

personal sphere is based on negative stereotypes, as the diffi-

culty in developing an active lifestyle, adopting a sedentary

attitude, low self-esteem and a lower quality of life. In front of

people who thinks that older people have much wisdom comes

from experience developed lifespan (García, 2011).

One of the main novelty in this work is to analyze the dis-

criminatory behavior (positive or negative) on young and eld-

erly people. Thus, we do extensive research to seniors. Similar

to Palmore in his study, we expect to answer questions like the

following:

 What is the prevalence of age discriminative behaviors in

the Andalucian society?

 What types of age discriminative behaviors are more fre-

quent?

Methods

Sample

A total of 108 persons participated in this study. The partici-

pants include 4th and 5th year university students of Psycho

pedagogy, and an older student body from the Class of the Ex-

perience of the University of Seville. Participants study at the

University of Seville. They have a socio-economic medium-

high status. Also, the sample is characterized by choosing vol-

untarily university studies. In the case of young people, 84%

report having intergenerational relationships with grandparents

or older neighbors.

The social demographic characteristics of the sample appear

in Table 1.

Instrument

In this study, has been used the Relating to Older People

Evaluation (Cherry & Palmore, 2008). The ROPE is a 20-item

questionnaire that measures positive and negative ageist be-

haviors that people engage in during everyday life.

To make the questionnaire we took the original questionnaire

ROPE and has been tested for construct validity and reliability

as Cronbach’s alpha, resulting in an overall reliability of .83.

About the construct validity of the scale, it was evaluated by

outside judges, experts in social perception, social discrimina-

tion and prejudice. The result respect to the proposed items

related to the topics was a high or very high valuation for each

of the items.

Proceedings

For the realization of the surveys, specific dates were pro-

grammed for the survey taker to go to the Psycho pedagogy

classes and the Class of the Experience, respectively, in order to

guarantee the maximum attendance of the students and to ob-

tain a representative sample of the object of study population.

Similarly, the same surveyor applied all the surveys in an at-

tempt to homogenize the implemented instructions.

Results

Frequency An al ys i s

In general, the results indicate that the age discriminative

behaviors are generalized and frequent in all age groups. Prac-

tically, all the survey-takers admitted one or more discrimina-

tive behaviors. In addition, the prevalence of positive behaviors

appears more frequently than negative ones.

The discriminative behavior more frequently manifested

through 98% of the survey-takers was “he or she asks for ad-

vice from an older person because of his or her age”. Almost

the same frequency is found in the other two behaviors of posi-

tive discrimination: “Enjoys conversing with older persons

because of his or her age” (91%); and “Maintains the doors

open for older people as a result of their age” (86%) (Table 2).

The least frequent positive age discriminative behavior was

“Votes for an older person as a result of his or her age” (23%).

The frequency analysis of the negative behavior of age dis-

crimination shows that 90% assert to say to an older person:

“You are too old for this”. This affirmation may look positive,

but in reality it is negative because it implies to sub-esteem the

capacities of the older person (Table 3). The second negative

element that was more frequent (64%) was: “When there is a

slow driver in front of you, you think it must be an older per-

son.” The three negative behaviors less frequent were: “Avoid

older people because they are irritating” (17%); “Vote against

an older person because of his/her age” (19%); and “Jokes

about older people’s age” (21%).

Gender and Age Differences

From this study, two age groups are derived: the young

adults (21 - 49 years old, n = 33) and middle-old age adults (5 0 -

82 years old, n = 75).

Table 1.

Social demographic characteristics.

Group Age Gender

M DT Range Men Women

Students of E d ucational P sychology (n = 34) 52.6 8.9 21 - 53 6 28

Students of E l d erly Programs (n = 74) 68.3 9.7 54 - 82 23 51

Table 2.

Most frequency positive discrimination.

Positive Discrimination

Behaviors of Discrimination Enjoys conversing with others because of his or her ageMaintains the doors open for older people as a result of their age

91% 86%

280

A. J. GARCÍA, Y. TROYANO

Table 3.

Most frequency negative discrimination.

Negative Discrimination

Behaviors of Discrimination You are too old for this When there is a slow driver in front of you, you think it must be an older person

90% 64%

With this data, we find little or no significant difference be-

tween the age groups, either in the manifestation of positive or

negative discrimination behaviors. Making a non-significant

ANOVA confirms an effect on base to the age groups (p = .62).

In this manner, the way to relate to the older adults is cultural

and it does not often change as the subjects’ age changes. The

relationship was significant in the positive discrimination be-

haviors F (1, 108) = 92.05, p < .001.

With respect to the possible differences of gender, we fore-

saw that men and women would give very similar answers.

Contrary to our expectations, the analysis shows an effect on

the answers given by women. In fact, women show more posi-

tive discrimination behavior towards older adults than men (F

(1, 108) = 5.41, p = .02), although neither men nor women dif-

fer in their perception of age discrimination negative behavior.

Discussion

We assume the fact that the majority of older adults have

experienced different forms of age discrimination (Palmore,

2001, 2004). Nevertheless, until not that long ago, there was no

interest to measure the frequency and the types of age dis-

crimination behaviors. The results have shown that people of all

ages admit to have age discrimination positive behavior. Simi-

larly, it has been verified the prevalence of the positive behav-

iors in the women’s responses.

Our first conclusion of interest from this study refers to the

predominance of the positive conducts over the negative in

relation to age discrimination. Therefore, we find that the used

questionnaire seems to be a valid instrument to measure age

discrimination behavior from a wide variety of participants.

The second interesting finding from this study has been that

the young adults and the middle-old age adults have shown to

have very similar age discrimination behavior. Nevertheless,

the attitudes towards the age discrimination behaviors diminish

with age and with more experience in life (Kalavar, 2001; Rupp,

Vodanovich, & Cred, 2005). In this sense, our results suggest

that age is not a determinant factor when it comes to age dis-

crimination behaviors.

The third interesting finding comes from the gender analysis,

which reveals that women show positive age discrimination

more frequently than men. In agreement with this point of view,

Stuart-Hamilton & Mahoney (2003) found that people with a

better understanding of the aging process may maintain atti-

tudes of less age discrimination.

Hence, the results from this study highlight the importance of

providing information and formation about the aging process,

either through a study program (like the one that the Class of

Experience proposes); either through continuous educational

workshops for the professionals that work with older adults.

This way, educational programs and workshops that focus on

improving the knowledge about the aging process are essential

for the professionals that may get in contact with the older adult

population, taking into consideration the demographic tendency

in a continuous ascent of the older adults in our present society

and in the future (Jackson, Cherry, Smitherman, & Hawley,

2008).

In our study, there were two limitations as far as the method

was concerned. First, people can deny or minimize the fre-

quency of their behavior if they perceive it is bad or socially

undesirable. In the same manner, they can exaggerate the fre-

quency of this type of behavior if they perceive that it is so-

cially desirable, which tends to augment the frequency of the

positive elements, giving place to the phenomenon of social

desirability.

Future studies must include the observation of the real be-

haviors or an instrument that controls such effect. Besides, it

would be interesting to do a prospective analysis based on the

results found in this study, which shows needs for implement-

ing a psychosocial intervention program. This program would

base its action on optimizing positives behaviors about elderly

people, favoring ac t iv e a g in g.

Acknowledgements

A. J. García and Y. Troyano thank to IMSERSO the possi-

bility to do this work with an I + D + I project about “Quality

Life and Elderly People”.

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