1. Stereotyping, Prejudice and Ageism in Social Cognition
PS 277 – Lecture 12

2. Midcourse Feedback Comments
Issues:
Slides up earlier
Textbook is very detailed – more tie-in between textbook and lectures
More real-life examples in lecture
More videos and guest speakers
More exam practice and review
Some people listed CSL problems
Discussion groups mostly perceived very positively
Most people wanted more discussions

3. Outline Stereotyping and Age
So What?: Impact of Stereotypes on Attitudes and Behaviors at Three Levels
Right Wing Authoritarianism and Social Collaboration in Older Adults
Media Presentations of Age Differences

4. What are Stereotypes?
Stereotypes are general expectancies or attitudes about characteristics associated with membership in a category – e.g., race, sex, age
Stereotypes can limit attention to individuality
Stereotypes can be positive or negative
Can be distinguished from behaviors that may be linked to – e.g., discrimination or ageism (e.g., denying someone a job on basis of age because think older adults less capable)

5. Darwin’s Struggle with Scientific Stereotypes
Peoples from “primitive” cultures were seen as less cognitively able, even as less human, strong negative stereotypes during the 19th century in the social and biological sciences
Darwin on “the races of man”: Darwin made many observations on how sophisticated primitive people could be in his journals on the Voyage of the Beagle, but struggled mightily with how to understand this
Some of the South American peoples, Fuegans, etc. were brought to England and “treated” as moderns – impressive to see how much different they seemed

6. Ageist Humour and Stereotypes on Aging (Bowd, 2003)
Jokes often use stereotyped expectancies shared between teller and listener, widely shared across culture
Several volumes of jokes were examined for aging stereotypes of both men and women: less than 4% of all jokes were focused on aging, more commonly about men than women
Most common categories: sex (70%), declining health (15%), declining cognitive function (10%)
Similar findings in analyses of the media presentation of older adults in general: relatively rare in media, especially older women in comparison to population

7. Some example stereotype categories from Bowd (2003):
Vain/virile male: An old man tells the priest in confession: I’m 79, always faithful to my wife, never looked at another woman. But yesterday I made passionate love to 18 year old twins.
Priest: When did you last go to confession?
Old man: What confession? I’m Jewish.
Priest: So why are you telling me?
I’m telling everybody.
The insatiable older woman: An older nun is walking home from the convent when a man jumps out the bushes and has his way with her. Then he says, “What will you tell the Holy Father now, sister?
She says: I must tell the truth! I’ll say I was walking home from the convent when a man jumped from the bushes and raped me three times – unless you’re too tired!”

8. An example memory joke:
Declining memory: Two older fellows are playing cards on Saturday night as usual. Max usually gets help from his wife remembering what cards are what. At the end of the game, Ed says to Max, “You did really well tonight, no help from the wife. How come?”
“Well, ever since my wife sent me to that memory school, I haven’t had any problems at all.”
“What memory school is that?”
Max thought a moment: “What do you call that pretty red flower, you know the one with the thorns?”
“A rose?”
“ Yeah, that’s it.” Max turned to his wife and mumbled: “Hey Rose, what’s the name of that school you sent me to?”

9. Multi –Dimensional Aspects of Age Stereotypes (Hummert)
Negative: severely impaired, despondent, shrew or curmudgeon, recluse
Positive: Golden agers, perfect grandparent, John Wayne conservative?
These tend to be more elaborated and detailed for older adults than for younger

10. Ryan et al. (2004) Study on Communication Stereotypes of Aging Across Cultures
Positive communication beliefs: empathic, good storyteller, social skills, wise
Negative communication beliefs: rambling, poor hearing and memory, negative conversation
Described a 25 or 75 year-old target person
Tested these effects in Chinese and Canadians

11. Results for Ryan et al. Study
Biggest differences for Canadians in interaction
True for both positive and negative traits, however – Storytelling (+) vs. Hearing (-)
Less age stereotyping in Chinese overall, but not more positive

12. Possible Impact of Stereotyping on Ageism at Society, Relationships, Individual Levels
Societal Implications of Aging Stereotypes – Current Issues
Communication Process Models in Relationships –Ryan’s Model
Personal Implications

13. Societal Level Ageism Issues
Old people seen as “ill, infirm, needy”
Pension benefits and current threats of economic collapse (e.g., auto sector)
End of mandatory retirement: older people keep working means…?
Can inflame tensions between generations; what do you think?

14. Relationship Level and Ageism
Ellen Ryan’s Communication Predicament Model
Rely on stereotyped ideas about aging to guide communication
Creates power imbalance in relationships
Undermines competent performance

15. encounter Ryan’s Communication Predicament Model recognition of
with older person
recognition of
old age cues
negative
changes in
rigidity of cues
stereotyped
expectations
loss
of personal control and
self esteem
lessened
psychological activity and
social interaction
modified
speech
behavior
toward the older person
reinforcement for age
stereotyped
behaviors
constrained
opportunities
for communication

16. Patronizing Speech to Older Adults
Patronizing speech: simple vocabulary, short sentences, loud and slow speech, diminutives (“sweetie”), high pitch – sounds like baby talk!
More common in some situations than others
Do you hear this in your placement settings?

17. Hummert et al. (1998) – Relations Between Stereotypes and Talk
Two different types of older adults: golden ager vs. despondent (presented in pictures)
In two different settings (nursing home, apartment)
Participants (young, middle aged, older) presented a persuasive message to person
Messages Judged as: Affirming, Directive or Nurturing (both directive and nurturing seen as negative or patronizing)

18. Overall Percentage Message Reported by Stereotype Given

19. Age X Target Use of Positive (Affirming) Communication

20. Individual Effects of Stereotypes
Stereotype threat: fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group to which one belongs.
May result in performance deficits – e.g., work on race and cognitive performance by Steele
Levy (1996): implicit priming of older adults with senile vs wise terms presented briefly on the computer
There were some memory performance deficits in older adults after activation of senile stereotype, but this did not work with young
Study has not been consistently replicated

21. Collaborative Cognition and Social Attitudes
Do people get more rigid and simpler in their thinking and attitudes as they age?
Might there be individual differences in the impact of others on our attitudes and beliefs in later life?
Collaborative thinking may help us to think of personal issues in more complex ways, as we noted before in wisdom section (Baltes & Staudinger)
People who say they consult more about solving personal problems also report being more satisfied with how these problems were resolved

22. An Example of Using Consultation to Increase Complexity?
70 year-old woman: “The lady next door to me was a very dear friend, and I used to help her quite a bit because she couldn’t go up and down stairs. We became good friends, and when she moved away, I felt a great loss. I used to talk to her quite a bit, and she made me realize my own problems weren’t so bad. She helped me see the other side of things…And now when things come up, I don’t just jump to the conclusion that this is what it’s like. I think, well, maybe this or that, and then I decide.”

23. Authoritarianism and the RWA
Altemeyer has developed and studied the Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) Scale:
E.g., "Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.“
People who are high on this construct are more likely to demonstrate simplistic thinking and also more likely to be prejudiced in many contexts

24. Bob Altemeyer – The Authoritarians (2006)

25. Individual Variability in Collaborative Thinking and Rigidity (Pratt & Norris, 1999)
Older adults more likely overall to say that they got less consultation and support from others in solving their personal moral dilemmas
This effect was largely the result of higher levels of authoritarianism in older adult samples (Pratt & Norris, 1999)
Authoritarian adults say they consult less with others, and their solutions to everyday problems tended to be simpler and more “black and white”
May be that older adults who are high in authoritarianism are prone to simplify their perspectives and avoid consulting with others who might disagree, whereas those who are less authoritarian do not experience this simplification process as much

26. Media and Aging: The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

27. Does this campaign address the issue?
“Dove is pro age. Dove believes that beauty has no age limit.”
Or is Dove selling products by exploiting women’s fear of being exploited?