Robertson Deirdre A, Weiss David
Columbia Aging Center, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
Department of Sociomedical Sciences & Columbia Aging Center, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
Psychol Aging. 2017 Sep;32(6):531-542. doi: 10.1037/pag0000186.
Negative age-related stereotypes often entail the perception that older adults have a lower social status than middle-aged adults. We hypothesized that older adults are perceived to have lower social status because they are less likely to be seen in prestigious occupational positions. People tend to infer general assumptions about group characteristics from exemplars. According to this, presenting a stereotype-inconsistent exemplar (i.e., older person in a high-status position) should change perceptions of older adults' social status. Study 1 (60 countries, N = 86,026, 18-99 years) showed that people in countries with an older relative to a younger political leader do not perceive as great a decline in social status from middle-aged to older adults. Study 2 (N = 131; 19-74 years) tested the causal link demonstrating that participants exposed to older exemplars holding a prestigious occupational position were significantly more likely to rate older adults as having a relative higher social status. We discuss implications for future interventions to change negative age-related stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record
与年龄相关的负面刻板印象通常意味着人们认为老年人的社会地位低于中年人。我们假设，老年人被认为社会地位较低是因为他们不太可能出现在有声望的职业岗位上。人们倾向于从典型事例中推断出关于群体特征的一般假设。据此，呈现一个与刻板印象不一致的典型事例（即处于高地位职位的老年人）应该会改变人们对老年人社会地位的看法。研究1（涉及60个国家，N = 86,026，年龄在18 - 99岁之间）表明，在政治领导人相对年长的国家，人们并不认为从中年到老年社会地位会有很大下降。研究2（N = 131；年龄在19 - 74岁之间）测试了因果关系，结果表明，接触到担任有声望职业岗位的老年典型事例的参与者更有可能将老年人的社会地位评定为相对较高。我们讨论了对未来改变与年龄相关的负面刻板印象的干预措施的启示。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》
