Dept of Psychobiology and Health, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Dept of Methodology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
PLoS One. 2020 May 15;15(5):e0232340. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232340. eCollection 2020.
A growing body of literature acknowledges the association between negative stereotypes and individual components of active aging, but very few studies have tested this association, at both individual and population levels. The Stereotypes Content Model (SCM) states that the cultural aging stereotyping of higher warmth than competence (called paternalistic or ambivalent prejudice) is universal. Our aims in this study are to test the extent to which the universality of this stereotype is confirmed in European Countries as well as how far "positive", "negative" or "ambivalent" views towards older people, and other negative attitudes such as prejudice and behaviours such as discrimination, predict active aging assessed both at individual and population levels. We have analyzed data from the European Social Survey-2008 (ESS-2008), containing SCM stereotypical and other appraisal items (such as direct prejudice and perceived discrimination) about adults aged over-70 from 29 European countries. First, SCM cultural stereotypes about older adults ("friendly", "competent", and "ambivalent") were calculated; secondly, after developing a typology of countries based on their "negative", "ambivalent" and "positive" views about older adults, the universality of cultural stereotypes was tested; thirdly, taking into consideration ESS data of those older persons (over 70s) who self-reported indicators of active aging (health, happiness, satisfaction and social participation), multilevel analyses were performed, taking our inter-individual measure of active aging as dependent variable and our stereotypical classification (positive/negative/ambivalent), direct prejudice and perceived discrimination as predictors; finally, relationships between stereotypical and appraisal items on older adults were examined at population level with country data from Active Aging Indexes. Our results show cultural stereotypes about older people (more friendly than competent) are widespread in most European countries, and negative cultural views of older adults are negatively associated with active aging both at individual and population level, supporting that negative cultural views of older adults could be considered as a threat to active aging.
越来越多的文献承认消极刻板印象与积极老龄化的个体组成部分之间存在关联，但很少有研究在个体和人群层面上检验这种关联。刻板印象内容模型（SCM）指出，文化上对老年人的刻板印象是热情高于能力（称为家长式或矛盾偏见），这种刻板印象具有普遍性。我们在这项研究中的目的是检验这种刻板印象的普遍性在欧洲国家中得到多大程度的证实，以及对老年人的“积极”、“消极”或“矛盾”看法以及其他负面态度（如偏见）和歧视行为等在多大程度上预测个体和人群层面上的积极老龄化。我们分析了来自 29 个欧洲国家的超过 70 岁成年人的 2008 年欧洲社会调查（ESS-2008）的数据，这些数据包含 SCM 刻板印象和其他评价项目（如直接偏见和感知歧视）。首先，计算了关于老年人的 SCM 文化刻板印象（“友好”、“能干”和“矛盾”）；其次，在根据各国对老年人的“消极”、“矛盾”和“积极”看法制定国家分类后，检验了文化刻板印象的普遍性；第三，考虑到那些自我报告积极老龄化指标（健康、幸福、满意度和社会参与）的老年人的 ESS 数据（70 岁以上），进行了多层次分析，将我们的个体积极老龄化衡量标准作为因变量，将刻板印象分类（积极/消极/矛盾）、直接偏见和感知歧视作为预测指标；最后，使用积极老龄化指数中的国家数据，在人群层面上检验了关于老年人的刻板印象和评价项目之间的关系。我们的结果表明，老年人的文化刻板印象（比能力更友好）在大多数欧洲国家都很普遍，对老年人的消极文化观念与个体和人群层面上的积极老龄化呈负相关，这表明对老年人的消极文化观念可能被视为积极老龄化的威胁。
