Synonyms

Age prejudice; Ageism; Stigma

Definition

Researchers distinguish between stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Stereotypes are defined as the mental representations people have about different social groups. Stereotypes have been described as “beliefs and opinions about the characteristics, attributes, and behaviors of members of various groups” (Whitley and Kite 2006, p. 6). In contrast, prejudice is depicted as the feelings people have toward different social groups. Prejudice is “an attitude directed toward people because they are members of a specific social group” (Whitley and Kite 2006, p. 7). Discrimination is conceived of as the behavior people enact toward members of different social groups. It has been defined as “treating people differently from others based primarily on membership in a social group” (Whitley and Kite 2006, p. 8). Note that stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination can be either positive or negative in valence, as people may have positive or negative mental representations and feelings and act positively or negatively toward others based on their social group membership. The majority of research on this topic, however, has focused on negative stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination directed at different social groups.

Ageism was first defined as age-based stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination (Butler 1969). In its original conception, age bias was conceptualized as bias directed at older adults, but prejudice toward young people also exists. The present entry focuses on ageism directed toward older people. Compared with research on other types of bigotry (e.g., racism, sexism), far less research exists on ageism (Chasteen et al. 2011; North and Fiske 2012). The majority of research that has been done on ageism has focused on negative age stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.

Age Stereotypes

One of the primary features of age stereotypes is that they are complex, consisting of both positive and negative elements. This complexity was first proposed by Neugarten in 1974 (Neugarten 1974). It was suggested that there are at least two age groups of older adults: the young-old and the old-old. The young-old are conceived of as relatively active, healthy, and educated and the old-old as less active and healthy. Since that time, the complexity of age stereotypes has been further characterized by a number of researchers. For example, Hummert (2011) found a total of seven specific age stereotypes of older people that were shared by young, middle-aged, and older adults. The seven stereotypes consisted of four negative – severely impaired, despondent, shrew/curmudgeon, recluse – and three positive – golden ager, perfect grandparent, and John Wayne conservative. Kornadt and Rothermund (2014) suggest that there is even greater complexity to age stereotypes, such that the content and valence vary as a function of context, specifically, the life domain in which older people are being considered at that time. They found evidence that evaluations of older adults could vary across eight different life domains: family, friends, religion, leisure, lifestyle, money, work, and health.

Other researchers also contend that stereotypes of older adults are not simply negative but consist of positive and negative components. The stereotype content model (SCM) suggests that most groups are evaluated along two fundamental dimensions: warmth and competence (Cuddy et al. 2008). Stereotypes about groups are based on the degree to which members of those groups are seen as warm and as competent. In the case of older adults, they are viewed as warm but incompetent. According to the SCM, this combination of perceptions can lead to feelings of pity toward older people and to paternalistic prejudice.

Most of the research on the content of age stereotypes has been done in Western cultures such as the United States and Europe. Studies that have compared Eastern and Western cultural perspectives have produced somewhat inconsistent findings. Some research found that individuals from Eastern cultures held more positive views of older adults, whereas others found that age stereotypes of older adults were more negative in Eastern cultures, such as in Asia (Hummert 2011). Despite these inconsistencies, however, there has been some agreement across Eastern and Western samples about the general content of age stereotypes, such that the age stereotypes found in some cultures (e.g., stereotypes about age-related cognitive and/or physical impairment) have also been identified in others (North and Fiske 2012; Hummert 2011). Instead, culture seems to influence what domains people emphasize within the general content of age stereotypes, such that individuals from Western cultures tend to focus more on age stereotypes about mental and physical traits, whereas individuals from Eastern cultures focus more on social and emotional traits (Hummert 2011). Overall, though, there is a great deal of convergence between Eastern and Western perspectives on the content of age stereotypes.

As noted earlier, context can determine how older people are stereotyped and perceived. Most of the research on age stereotypes has focused on descriptive stereotypes, or depicting the content of people’s beliefs about how older people are. More recent work has shown that prescriptive age stereotypes are also applied toward older people. Prescriptive stereotypes refer to beliefs about how older people should behave and involve expectations that are used to control what older people do (North and Fiske 2012). Three types of prescriptive age stereotypes have been posited to exist: succession, identity, and consumption (North and Fiske 2012). For succession, the prescriptive age stereotype is an expectation that older adults will relinquish resources such as jobs to younger generations, who wish to succeed them. A prescriptive stereotype about identity pertains to the expectation that older adults “act their age” and engage in age-appropriate behavior. For consumption, the prescriptive stereotype refers to concerns that older adults will consume more than their fair share of resources such as health care or pensions. The researchers suggest that when older adults violate any of these three prescriptive age stereotypes, they are more likely to face hostile prejudice rather than paternalistic prejudice, as posited by the SCM (North and Fiske 2012).

Age Prejudice and Discrimination

Several reviews and meta-analyses have been conducted on attitudes toward older adults. The majority of studies have found that older adults are viewed negatively more often than positively (Chasteen et al. 2011; Hummert 2011; Kite et al. 2005). The context surrounding the assessment of age-related attitudes, however, can make a difference. For example, within-subject designs in which young and older adults are directly compared tend to produce more negative assessments of older adults than when a between-subject design is used. As well, when older adults are depicted as behaving in stereotypically consistent ways, such as being forgetful, they are rated more negatively (Hess 2006).

Consistent with the results for explicit evaluations described above, results of studies that have used implicit assessments of attitudes toward older adults have also found more negative than positive reactions (Hummert 2011). For example, research using the implicit association test (IAT) found that people implicitly preferred younger over older adults. Respondents demonstrated these preferences not only in Western countries but in Eastern nations as well (Hummert 2011).

Although a great deal of research has found negative attitudes toward older adults, expressed both explicitly and implicitly, findings from the SCM suggest that there should be instances in which attitudes toward older adults are ambivalent. Based on the SCM, Cuddy and colleagues developed the BIAS (behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes) map in order to capture the different types of prejudice and discriminatory behaviors that various social groups might face (Cuddy et al. 2008). They propose that discriminatory behaviors can be predicted systematically from both the stereotypes and emotions (prejudices) perceivers hold of various social groups. In their BIAS map, Cuddy and colleagues contend that two dimensions explain a wide scope of discriminatory behaviors toward various groups, including older adults: (1) the intensity of the behavior (i.e., active or passive) and (2) the valence of the behavior (i.e., facilitative or harmful) (Cuddy et al. 2008). The intensity dimension refers to the amount of effort a person puts into a behavior. Active behaviors are straightforward, explicit, intense, and purposeful, whereas passive behaviors are indirect, implicit, and relatively less intense and purposeful. The valence dimension helps to explain whether the intended consequences of active and passive behaviors will be positive or negative. Facilitative behaviors are prosocial and help others achieve their goals, thus leading to positive outcomes. In contrast, harmful behaviors are antisocial and impede others from reaching their goals, thus leading to negative outcomes for the target group. In combination, these two bipolar dimensions produce four categories of discriminatory behaviors:

  1. 1.

    Active facilitation. Behaviors that fall under this category are overtly intended to benefit members of a group. Examples of these are providing aid or offering an older adult a seat on public transportation.

  2. 2.

    Active harm. Behaviors classified in this category are overtly intended to disadvantage a group. Examples include physical or verbal abuse.

  3. 3.

    Passive facilitation. Behaviors categorized this way involve cooperating with another group with the intention of benefitting the self. Notably, however, both groups benefit from this behavior. An example would be providing companionship to an older family member in order to receive an inheritance from him or her.

  4. 4.

    Passive harm. Behaviors falling under this category involve hurting another group by distancing oneself from that group. This is achieved by ignoring or socially excluding others. An example is choosing not to hire an applicant because of his or her age.

In order to predict whether individuals will act in an active or passive manner that is either helpful or harmful, Cuddy and colleagues argue that the perceived warmth and competence of a particular group must be considered. Importantly, they contend that the warmth dimension is more important than the competence dimension, because the warmth judgment is based on the extent to which people believe that a target group’s goals threaten the self. Thus, the level of warmth attributed to a group predicts whether perceivers will act in an active facilitative or in an active harmful manner toward that group. That is, groups stereotyped as high in warmth evoke active helping behavior from others and groups stereotyped as low in warmth evoke active harmful behavior from others. Conversely, competence stereotypes of a group are predictive of whether others will act in a passive facilitative or in a passive harmful manner toward members of that group. People will behave in a passive facilitative way toward groups perceived as highly competent and in a passive harmful way toward groups perceived as low in competence. Findings supporting the SCM show that older adults are stereotyped as warm but incompetent and are often treated in active facilitative and passive harmful ways (Cuddy et al. 2008). For instance, institutionalization can be intended to help an older adult; however, it also isolates that individual from society and can lead to neglect.

Emotions mediate the link between combinations of the warmth and competence stereotypes and behavior. Admiration, based on the stereotype that a target group is high in both competence and in warmth, leads to both active and passive facilitation. Contempt, based on the stereotype that a target group is low in both competence and in warmth, leads to both active and passive harm. Envy, based on the stereotype that a target group is high in competence but low in warmth, leads to active harmful and passive facilitative behaviors. Pity, based on the stereotype that a target group is low in competence but high in warmth, leads to active facilitative and passive harmful behaviors. Given that older adults are stereotyped as highly warm yet not very competent and are a pitied group, they are often treated with paternalistic or benevolent prejudice (Cuddy et al. 2008). Such behaviors convey the message that older adults are subordinate, weak, and incapable.

While pity is the default emotion associated with older adults, there are instances in which they may face other kinds of discriminatory behavior. As noted earlier, when older adults violate prescriptive age stereotypes, they are more likely to face hostile forms of prejudice. For example, when older adults violate age prescriptions about succession (i.e., yielding desired resources like jobs to younger age groups), they are more likely to face envious prejudice (North and Fiske 2012). If older people violate the prescriptive age stereotype concerning consumption (i.e., using only one’s fair share of common resources such as health care), feelings of contempt and anger may ensue. But if older adults violate age prescriptions about identity and do not “act their age,” they will likely face distancing and rejection. When any of these three prescriptive age stereotypes are perceived to be violated, it is more likely that older people will face some types of hostile ageism (envy, contempt, rejection) than paternalistic or benevolent ageism.

Examples of Age Discrimination

Patronizing speech. Benevolent ageism is often manifested through people’s communication patterns with older adults. Patronizing speech, called elderspeak, is often used with older adults in order to attempt to actively facilitate communication and is characterized by over-accommodation and baby talk (Whitley and Kite 2006; Bugental and Hehman 2007). People unconsciously over-accommodate when communicating with elders by being excessively polite and expressive while speaking in a loud and slow manner with great enunciation. Baby talk is an extreme form of overcompensation in which a person uses simplified language, a higher register, and exaggerated intonation when communicating with older adults as well as physical behaviors such as patting older adults on the head (Whitley and Kite 2006; Bugental and Hehman 2007). Both the verbal and the physical behaviors involved in baby talk convey assumptions about older adults’ limited cognitive and hearing abilities as well as situate older adults as subordinate (Whitley and Kite 2006; Bugental and Hehman 2007). Importantly, this form of ageism is used by a variety of communicators such as nurses in nursing homes, strangers, and family members (Whitley and Kite 2006).

Elder abuse. Hostile ageism, including elder abuse, can often be seen within the family. The most common forms of elder abuse within families include physical abuse, neglect, financial exploitation, and discrimination in the area of sexuality (Palmore et al. 2005). These forms of abuse are especially common when older adults live with their children and are seen as a burden (Palmore et al. 2005). During physical abuse, physical force is used and may result in bodily harm. Neglect involves a lack of attending to older adults’ needs. Financial exploitation includes misusing older adults’ money, property, and other assets. Finally, when older adults express a desire for sexual intimacy, they may face criticism from younger family members because such desires are seen stereotypically as abnormal for an older population. This can have negative implications for relationships both within and outside of the family, leaving older adults vulnerable to social isolation.

Ageism in health care. Medical professionals may express ageist behaviors and attitudes, which can be observed early on in medical professionals’ careers. For instance, medical, nursing, and social work students have reported that they think more positively about the idea of interacting with younger adults and more negatively about interacting with older adults (Carmel et al. 1992). Consequently, these students find that they are least likely to want to work with older adults compared to other age groups and compared to other types of patients (such as drug addicts, heart disease patients, psychiatric patients, etc.) (Palmore et al. 2005; Carmel et al. 1992). This can have implications for the quality of service that doctors, nurses, social workers, and other health-care professionals provide to older adults. For instance, believing the stereotype that illness is natural in old age may lead students and doctors to misdiagnose physical and psychological ailments and can affect communication with older patients (Whitley and Kite 2006; Hess 2006; Palmore et al. 2005). Doctors and other medical professionals may appear to be less respectful, less informative, and less responsive and to afford less time to older patients than to young and middle-aged patients (Whitley and Kite 2006; Hess 2006).

Ageism in the workplace. The workplace is another area in which people may behave in discriminatory ways toward older adults. Many older workers report experiences of being ignored, being excluded from important decisions, and being talked down to by coworkers and bosses (Blackstone 2013). Additionally, younger workers may socially exclude older adults and make offensive jokes about their age (Blackstone 2013). A strong bias exists in the hiring, promoting, and termination processes that favors younger adults. This bias is driven by the incompetence stereotype that people tend to hold of older adults. People prefer to hire and to promote younger candidates, perceiving them as more competent than older candidates. At the same time, people are more likely to terminate jobs filled by older workers, who are more likely to have higher salaries (Whitley and Kite 2006; Palmore et al. 2005). These decisions are often justified with the stereotypic view that older adults are unproductive and less capable in the workplace (Whitley and Kite 2006). Older adults are often encouraged to retire and some are asked to continue to perform the same services voluntarily that they did when they were being paid (Palmore et al. 2005).

Ageism in the media. Older adults are underrepresented in the media but are portrayed narrowly when they do appear (Whitley and Kite 2006; Palmore et al. 2005). Generally, the media primarily targets younger audiences and neglects older audiences, thus conveying the message that older adults are of low importance. Even in magazines which target older adults, such as AARP’s Modern Maturity, older adults appear in less than half of the advertisements (Whitley and Kite 2006). When older adults are included in the media, negative images primarily depict them as unattractive, out-of-date, and having poor health (Bugental and Hehman 2007). For instance, in a number of magazines, such as Time, older adults primarily appear in pharmaceutical advertisements (Whitley and Kite 2006). Magazines and advertisements illustrate aging as an unwanted process and offer a number of solutions to reverse the process, such as Botox injections to smooth wrinkles. Other forms of media, such as comedy shows and birthday cards, insult and make fun of older adults, thus reinforcing negative age stereotypes (Palmore et al. 2005). Furthermore, most people are not aware that such comments may unconsciously intensify people’s negative attitudes toward older adults and aging (Palmore et al. 2005).

Experiences and Effects of Age Stereotypes and Discrimination

As discussed earlier, older adults are stereotyped on negative (incompetent, curmudgeon) and positive (warm, perfect grandparent) dimensions. This complexity of age stereotypes creates multiple ways in which ageism can manifest, as highlighted in the BIAS model (Cuddy et al. 2008). Almost all older adults in Canada and the United States experience ageism (Palmore 2004). In fact, 91% of older adults surveyed from Canada and 85% of older adults from the United States reported experiencing at least one form of ageism. Ageist experiences range from severe (e.g., being victimized) to mild (e.g., receiving a birthday card that pokes fun at one’s age). Encouragingly, the severe forms of ageism are far less common than milder forms. Only 5% of older adults report experiencing victimization vs. 70% who have experienced jokes based in age stereotypes. However, it is not uncommon for older adults to be patronized (46%), to be ignored (43.5%), or to be met with assumptions of incompetence (35.5%).

Although we know that most older adults will experience ageism, we know relatively little about the effect of ageism on older adults. There is an imbalance in the extent to which the perspectives of those who display prejudice are understood compared with the perspectives of those who experience it. Specifically, more is known about expressions of age stereotypes and prejudice than about what it is like to be the target of those age biases. Of the small amount of research that has documented older adults’ ageism experiences, it has been shown that benevolent ageism, such as being patronized, and hostile ageism, such as social exclusion, both have negative impacts on older adults’ psychological well-being, cognitive functioning, and health (Hess 2006; Bugental and Hehman 2007). Examples of the deleterious impact of age stereotypes and ageism on older adults include research on the provision of unwanted help (specifically, patronizing speech), age self-stereotypes, and stereotype threat.

The effects of patronizing speech on older adults. It is intuitive that hostile ageism will have a negative impact on older adults. It is somewhat less intuitive why benevolent ageism, manifested in helping behaviors, can also negatively affect older people. Patronizing speech, as discussed above, is commonly used when people communicate with older adults. The manner in which older adults experience and respond to patronizing speech depends on their cognitive and functional abilities. Older adults whose functional ability is low are responsive to over-accommodating speech. However, this communication method is often applied to older adults with little or no cognitive decline and is experienced as condescending and patronizing. Specifically, over-accommodation is both insulting and harmful to older adults. It is insulting in that it assumes that all older adults have similarly low cognitive abilities and is a condescending behavior. It is harmful because it is associated with several negative outcomes among older adults including a loss of self-esteem, motivation, and confidence and a loss of feeling in control (Hess 2006). Stereotype-based helping behaviors like this can lead to dependency in older adults by creating a self-fulfilling system of expectations. Over-accommodation is predicated on beliefs of lowered competency in older adults. With repeated exposure, these beliefs are internalized by older adults and come to be accepted as valid. Once these beliefs are perceived as valid, older adults’ expectations about their own abilities are lowered, leading to lower performance, which serves to reinforce the original beliefs of lowered competency (Bugental and Hehman 2007). Thus, the behavior of older adults who experience over-accommodation may not reflect their actual cognitive abilities, but instead be a reflection of the expectations of their caregivers.

Age self-stereotypes and stereotype embodiment theory. The extent to which older adults internalize and endorse negative age stereotypes predicts a variety of age-related outcomes, such as for memory function and health. The manner in which this occurs is explained through stereotype embodiment theory (Levy 2009). Stereotype embodiment theory has four main components. The first component explains that age stereotypes are internalized throughout a person’s lifetime, forming self-stereotypes among older adults. This highlights a unique aspect of older adults’ experiences of ageism (vs. other minority experiences of prejudice). The age group to which a person belongs changes over the life span, with younger adults expecting to age and eventually join the age group of older adults. Thus, over time, older adults go from being outgroup members to ingroup members as people grow older. In contrast, other group identities, such as race, remain constant and membership is stable across one’s life span. For most of their lives, people do not perceive older adults as members of their ingroup and are not motivated to challenge age stereotypes (Levy 2009). Thus, when people are first exposed to age stereotypes, often in childhood, they are not motivated to reject these stereotypes like they would be if the stereotypes are applied to an ingroup. Age stereotypes are consistently reinforced throughout adulthood and are internalized after repeated exposure. This process results in age self-stereotypes, whereby older adults apply internalized age stereotypes to their own aging expectations and experiences.

The extent to which age stereotypes influence older adults does not rely on explicit activation or endorsement of these stereotypes. This is the second component of stereotype embodiment theory (Levy 2009), and it is supported with a large body of literature demonstrating that subliminal activation of negative age stereotypes influences older adults’ performance on a variety of tasks. Even tasks that are not under conscious control can be affected by subtle activation of age stereotypes. For example, older adults who complete a writing task after exposure to subliminally presented negative age stereotypes have shakier and less steady handwriting than those exposed to positive age stereotypes.

The third component of the stereotype embodiment theory explains that the effects of age stereotypes are only present among people for whom the stereotype is self-relevant. That is, older adults are impacted by internalized and primed age stereotypes but younger adults, for whom the stereotypes are not relevant, are not.

The fourth component of stereotype embodiment theory explains the pathways through which behavioral assimilation to age stereotypes occurs. There are three pathways: psychological, behavioral, and physiological (Levy 2009). The psychological pathway functions through expectations founded in age stereotypes. These internalized stereotypes guide expectations about the aging experience and create self-fulfilling beliefs about the aging process. These expectations limit older adults’ ability to perform mental and physical tasks. A second pathway is the behavioral pathway. The behavioral pathway functions primarily through healthy behaviors. A common stereotype about aging is that it is associated with poor health. Internalizing this stereotype leads to the belief that declining health is inevitable and beyond control. This belief prevents older adults from engaging in behaviors to minimize health decline. Thus, the perception that declining health is inevitable prevents older adults from engaging in behaviors that would contradict this belief and a reinforcing pattern of beliefs and behavior is formed. The third pathway, through physiology, is founded in the relationship between stress and various health outcomes. For example, older adults primed with negative age stereotypes demonstrate larger cardiovascular responses to a stressful situation. Thus, stress, a predictor of health, is a more common experience among older adults holding negative views of aging, leading to more serious health declines, including cardiovascular issues.

Stereotype threat. Stereotype embodiment theory (Levy 2009) emphasizes the unconscious relationship between age stereotypes and age-relevant outcomes. A second theory, stereotype threat, focuses on the effects of being aware of age stereotypes (Steele 1997). The extent to which older adults have internalized negative age stereotypes will impact the effect that reminders of their age have on their subsequent performance on age-relevant tasks, including tests of memory (Chasteen et al. 2011). This phenomenon is known as stereotype threat (also conceptualized as social identity threat (Steele et al. 2002)), and it states that concern about confirming a group-relevant stereotype will lead an individual to perform worse on the associated task, thus confirming the stereotype (Steele 1997; Steele et al. 2002). Stereotype threat has been found for memory and cognitive function in tests involving older adults (Hess 2006). When older adults are given instructions emphasizing the memory component of a task, their subsequent memory performance is reduced compared to those who do not experience instructions with this emphasis and compared to younger adults who receive the same instructions. Similar effects are found for recall tasks following a reminder that older adults have poor memory skills.

Stereotype threat functions through multiple pathways to create performance deficits. One path works through reducing older adults’ use of memory strategies, such as clustering (Chasteen et al. 2011). A second path functions through reduced performance expectations such that lowered expectations lead to poorer performance. This is similar to what is seen after exposure to benevolent ageism, although the cause of lowered expectations varies. Older adults who value the domain in which they are being evaluated and those who are strongly identified with their age group experience larger stereotype threat deficits (Chasteen et al. 2011).

Overcoming Age Stereotypes

Age stereotypes contain negative and positive content and are internalized by people across their lives. The impact of negative age stereotypes is demonstrated through stereotype embodiment theory and stereotype threat; however, there are several methods to alleviate these effects. Priming positive stereotypes can facilitate positive outcomes (Palmore 2004; Levy et al. 2014) as can priming incremental (vs. entity) beliefs (Plaks and Chasteen 2013). Successfully completing an age-relevant task can also improve performance on subsequent tasks (Geraci and Miller 2013).

Positive age stereotypes. Just as negative stereotypes about aging can lead to poor outcomes for older adults, so can positive age stereotypes facilitate positive outcomes (Levy 2009; Levy et al. 2014). Older adults presented with positive age stereotypes implicitly (subliminally) on a weekly basis for four weeks experienced a variety of positive outcomes. These included increases in the extent to which they endorsed positive age stereotypes, the extent to which they applied positive age stereotypes to their own aging process and their own physical function (Levy et al. 2014).

Incremental mind-sets. People who endorse incremental beliefs espouse the view that personal qualities are malleable and that people can improve with effort. In contrast, people who endorse entity beliefs endorse the view that personal qualities are fixed and cannot be improved, regardless of a person’s motivation or effort (Plaks and Chasteen 2013). Those who endorse entity beliefs tend to rely more on stereotypes than those who endorse incremental beliefs; they also tend to engage in more self-stereotyping. The extent to which people self-stereotype is particularly relevant to older adults, given the relationship between self-stereotypes and age-associated outcomes discussed in stereotype embodiment theory (Levy 2009). Older adults who endorse incremental beliefs perform better on memory tasks than do older adults who endorse entity beliefs (Plaks and Chasteen 2013). Theories on change may be successfully applied to improve older adults’ performance on age-relevant tasks. Older adults primed with incremental beliefs outperform older adults primed with entity beliefs on measures of free recall and reading span, both measures of memory performance.

Performance expectations. The priming effects of exposing older adults to either positive age stereotypes or incremental beliefs operate at an unconscious level to improve older adults’ performance on age-relevant tasks. A third means through which the effects of negative age stereotypes can be reduced functions by explicitly changing older adults’ expectations about their performance (Geraci and Miller 2013). As discussed above, older people’s expectations about age-related outcomes (e.g., memory, health, etc.) impact the extent to which they engage in behaviors to achieve the desired outcome, thus reducing the likelihood of success and ultimately supporting the relevant age stereotypes. Changing older people’s expectations can break this feedback cycle. Performing a cognitive task successfully improves older adults’ performance on a subsequent memory task by reducing the anxiety associated with the memory task (Geraci and Miller 2013). Interestingly, failing a task produces the same subsequent performance as not performing a prior task: Violating the expectation of failure, not experiencing failure, influences subsequent performance. When older adults expect to succeed, they are more likely to succeed, and it is possible to enhance perceptions of future success through an unrelated prior success.

Conclusion

Age stereotypes consist of the mental representations people have about older adults. These stereotypes are complex, consisting of both negative and positive content and varying across life domains. Viewing older adults as stereotypically warm but incompetent can lead to patronizing behavior in which older adults face benevolent ageism. When older adults violate prescriptive age stereotypes and do not exhibit expected behaviors, they may face hostile ageism. Benevolent and hostile ageism have been shown to occur in a variety of life domains for older people and to worsen older adults’ emotional, cognitive, and physical well-being. Moreover, older adults may fall prey to aging self-stereotypes because they might have internalized negative age stereotypes earlier in life. Exposing older people to negative age stereotypes, either implicitly or explicitly, can worsen their cognitive and physical function. Fortunately, the deleterious impact of negative age stereotypes on older people can be mitigated through exposure to positive age stereotypes or incremental beliefs about the ability to change or by altering older adults’ performance expectations through previous experiences of success.

Cross-References