This research area has been greatly stimulated by [32] 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, which reviewed and attempted to dispel 50 prominent myths in psychology. Numerous studies have used the 50 myths and 250 “mythlets” to test various hypotheses in this area ([19]; [16]; [50]). Further, other recent books have been published looking at specific myths ([3]; [11]; [56]). However, it should be noted that there is not always agreement on the “myth statements” and whether they are sufficiently clear, well expressed, and that there is always unambiguous data that they are indeed myths. From this point of view, it seems that they may be better considered as stereotypes as there is no clear distinction between myths, misconceptions and stereotypes ([6]; [30]; [31]). Indeed, there is a rich literature on stereotypes about age and aging and how they have changed over the years ([36]). Also, there is the question of the difference between subjective age (how old a person feels), how old they are chronologically, and what may be considered an “old” or “older” person ([48]; [57]).

[32] inspired various other, more specialised, books with very similar titles and formats, such as Great Myths of the Brain, which listed 41 myths under various headings like defunct myths, immortal myths, and myths about the physical structure of the brain ([23]). Another wasGreat Myths of Child Development, which listed 50 myths under various headings such as growth, body, mind, emotions, behaviour, and social environment ([22]). Others concerning issues like Neuropsychology, Personal Relationships, andIntelligence have followed ([24]; [25]). In a number of studies, Furnham and colleagues have explored the extent to which people still adhere to these myths ([16]; [17]; [18]).

Many of these books and studies concern developmental issues and changes over time: how people develop and change. Such issues as whether intelligence and personality change over time, particularly in late adulthood, remain a topic of great interest and debate and are clearly related to the topic of this study: namely, what happens to people as they age.

This study is based on [14] book Great Myths of Aging.There have been many studies on myths and misconceptions, as opposed to empirical and objective facts, about older people ([1]; [4]; [5]; [12]; [13]; [15]; [46]; [45]; [52]; [53]; [54]; [55]). There are a large number of measures of attitudes to aging ([26]).Studies have used different populations and different questionnaires, but reveal consistent and persistent stereotypes and misconceptions about old people being endorsed. Less effort has gone into perhaps the more important question of why the myths are so persistent, how they are transmitted,

and indeed how they may be challenged. More importantly, many experts may indeed challenge the evidence to support the idea that the statements are myths.

The study of myths about aging has mainly been driven by the desire to educate people about aging and correct myths. It is difficult to compare individual studies which used different methods and questions on different populations, but it seems that many erroneous negative stereotypes about the considerable and obvious mental and physical decline of people over 70 persist across time and cultures.

[1] published a report in which they argued: “Armed with the facts about the myths and realities of aging,individuals,families,and our society are better able to view older adults as resources and to provide appropriate support for those in need of assistance” (p. 4). In doing so, they provided data to support as well as refute myths such as “Most older adults stay socially engaged and productive” and “Older adults have little to no interest in sex or intimacy.” Like so many other organisations, they attempt to refute myths by providing up-to-date factors such as “Dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia) is not a normal part of aging. Approximately 5% of individuals between 71 and 79, and 37% of the population above age 90, are affected and “As they age, people are generally more satisfied with their lives and more optimistic about growing older.”

One interesting question is the universality of myths about aging, and whether and why they may differ from culture to culture and time to time. For instance, does the average longevity of people in a culture or country have a powerful impact on their beliefs, as they are differently exposed to older people, which is a relative construct. With the longevity of people climbing in most developed countries, people are more exposed to older and often very old people (e.g., over 90 years), and it is important to understand how this affects their understanding of the process of aging.

Over 40 years ago, Palmore constructed the first Facts on Aging Quiz (FAQ1) in order to inspire students’ interest in the topic of aging and to provide a short objective test on the attitudes and knowledge of the general public. In the ensuing decades, FAQ1 became ‘‘the international standard for measuring knowledge and misconceptions about aging’’ ([41]). After the broad acceptance of this first quiz, [40] produced a second Facts on Aging Quiz (FAQ2) ‘‘to be used either in a test-retest situation or as an additional test of knowledge and misconceptions about aging’’ ([41]). The quizzes were designed to measure basic knowledge of physical, mental, and social facts about old age and aging as well as common misconceptions ([38]). Twenty years ago, his measures were re-tested ([47]) (See Appendix 1). As one might expect, many of the statements/myths are similar to those used in this study, as they describe the mental and physical decline of people as they age. People become less happy, less interested in sex, and find it difficult to learn new things (especially technology). For instance, there is no mention of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in the Palmore studies, as well as clearly defining old people as all those who are over 65. There are also race difference questions which would probably not be acceptable today.

This study was based on the [14] book Great Myths of Aging.The book lists 37 myths and documents evidence to contradict them, containing 20 pages of references to studies that provide clear information that could be used to confront the myths. Their aim was in part to be “myth-busters” of negative and erroneous beliefs about older people. The book is in a series that looks at myths about different topics and aims in part to investigate “unexamined beliefs: that deeply hurt and damage can be caused when we take these myths as true.” Experts, however, may indeed challenge particular myths and how they were expressed, as well as the actual evidence for each statement.

The study set out specifically to examine the extent to which a sample of adult people currently endorsed these myths. We were essentially interested in two things: first, the extent to which the myths were recognized as such or thought to be true, false, or unknown. We followed the methodology of previous papers and sought to establish the extent to which people were relatively confident in their opinions. Secondly, and perhaps more interestingly, we were interested in the individual difference correlates of these beliefs. In a similar study looking at myths about intelligence, [18] examined a number of correlates but found no systematic pattern. However, in a study about myths concerning personality traits, [20] found significant and explicable relationships between participants’ gender, education, ideology (as measured by political and religious beliefs), and intelligence and the extent to which they accepted or rejected various myths. They found, for instance, that intelligent people were less likely to accept myths. We aimed to replicate this finding in this paper.

In this study, we explore these individual differences as well as the age of the participants, which we believe are important and explicable correlates of many beliefs about aging. We focus particularly on the beliefs of younger people, whose beliefs about aging are often underexplored. We were interested in three issues: first, the prevalence of aging myth acceptance today based on the recent [14] book; second, whether there seems to be any change in various myths over the last 40 - 50 years by comparing our data with previous studies like that of Palmore; third, systematic individual differences in those beliefs, examining the idea that personal ideology (e.g., political and religious beliefs) as well as gender and intelligence are logically and significantly related to the acceptance and rejection of myths about aging.

A total of 616 participants completed the questionnaire: 307 were men and 309 were women. The study was run in 2021 and they reported their year of birth (Range 1941-2000), with a mean of 1986 (SD = 9.53 years), meaning their mean age was 35 years. Around 50% of participants were born between 1978 and 1996, meaning they were mainly between 25 and 43 years old. All had secondary school education and around half were graduates. In total, 46.2% were single and 26.8% were married, and 69% had no children. They rated themselves on three scales: How religious are you? (1 = Not at all to 8 = Very) (M = 2.97, SD = 2.42); How would you describe your political beliefs? (1 = Very Left Wing to 8 = Very Right Wing) (M = 6.07, SD = 1.63). In all, 36.2% said they believed in life after death and 63.7% said they did not.

Great Myths of Aging. The myths and misconceptions were derived from [14]. This was not designed as a questionnaire and therefore has no psychometric data associated with it. Response options were broken down into Definitely True (DT), Probably True (PT), Definitely False (DF), Probably False (PF), and Don’t Know (DK), allowing for greater information to be gleaned regarding the kinds of True and False responses. In addition, the “Don’t Know” option improves upon some previous tests, as participants could indicate a lack of knowledge rather than guessing or leaving items unanswered ([2]). This followed the format of previous studies using a similar methodology ([18]; [20]).

The Wonderlic Personnel Test([58]). This well-known, short, and valid 50-item test can be administered in 12 minutes and measures general intelligence. Items include word and number comparisons, disarranged sentences, and story problems that require mathematical and logical solutions. The test has impressive norms and correlates very highly (r = .92) with the WAIS-R. In this study, we used 16 items from Form A (14, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 43, 46). This was not a timed test, which may have skewed the results. The measure has been used in many previous studies ([20]). The mean score was 10.78 (SD = 2.95) and the alpha was .84.

Ethical approval was gained prior to data collection (CEHP/217/565).Data were collected by Prolific, which is a platform similar to Amazon-Turk. We specified that they had to be over 21 years old and from Great Britain. Participants were paid, adult, non-vulnerable volunteers who had to fulfill various criteria. They understood that they did not have to answer every question. The questionnaire took an average of 20 minutes to complete. Participants were paid the standard rate for this task. Data were inspected and cleaned before analysis. All analysis was done using the SPSS package.

All of the items presented were myths (as defined above); thus, for all items, the “correct” answer was False (Probably or Definitely). Participants’ False responses were summed in order to create a myth recognition score. That is, the more they rejected the myths, the higher their “correct score.” This could be described as a descriptive index rather than a psychometric test.

Item level analyses

Table 1 shows the results for the myths. In all, seven were identified by more than 50% of the participants as Definitely False (DF). When the Definitely and Probably False categories were combined, 22 of the myths were correctly identified as false by over 50% of the sample.

Table 1. Results of the study.

On the other hand, there were no items for which over 40% of the respondents said were Definitely True. However, there were 11 items where more than 200 respondents (40%) said they were Probably True (PT). When the Definitely and Probably True were combined, 11 of the myths were incorrectly identified by the sample. On 18 items, over 100 respondents (20%) said that they Don’t Know; the highest scores were for items 6, 8, 44, and 47.

Some of the items identified by participants as either Definitely or Probably true were rather surprising, like 15: “Most older adults are suckers and easy prey for scam artists”; 16: “Most older people are extra cautious when they have to make decisions”; and 23: “Most older people are very set in their ways.”

Two scores were then computed for each individual: the total scores in which they had marked Definitely or Probably True, and Definitely or Probably False. These scores were correlated at r= −.80. These two scores were then correlated (Pearson) with various demographic and belief variables (see Table 2).

Table 2. Correlations, means, and SDs for all variables.

*p < .001 **p < .01 ***p < .05 Sex: 1 = Male, 2 = Female. Note: Age is recorded as birth year: as this increases, age decreases), False scores (i.e., correct scores) decrease: older people are more accurate and younger are less accurate.

Overall, correlations were low, but there was a significant relationship between six of the variables and the True/False scores. They indicated that females were less likely than males to believe the myths as True and more likely to believe them as False. Younger people endorsed more myths as True and fewer as False. More religious people had higher True and lower False scores, while the opposite was the case for more politically left-wing people. Brighter people had lower True and higher False scores, as predicted.

Three regressions were then computed, with both test total scores (True, False, Don’t Know) as the criterion variable. The results of the first regression, which was a score indicating the overall acceptance of aging myths, suggested that just over 10% of the variance could be accounted for. It indicated that males with less schooling, more left-wing political beliefs, and who were less intelligent tended overall to endorse aging myths. Similarly, younger, more intelligent females tended to reject the myths as false. There were essentially few correlates of the Don’t Know response.