Forty women (10 young university students, 10 middle-aged university students, 10 middle-aged out-of-school subjects, and 10 elderly out-of-school subjects) were asked to study and recall a randomly presented categorized word list. The women were then asked to indicate which of a group of 20 mnemonic strategies they had used to remember the word list and to rank the 20 strategies according to usefulness in the memory task. On almost all measures (number of words recalled, number of words recalled per category, number of different strategies employed, frequency of use of the various strategies, and perceived usefulness of the strategies), the two in-school groups were more similar to each other, and the two outof-school groups were more similar to each other than were the two middle-aged groups. Analyses of covariance, using years of schooling as the covariate, reduced several of the differences between the two middle-aged groups of subjects. The combined results reveal that years of schooling, as well as actually being in school, may be better predictors than age of differences in metamemory and memory performance.

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Psychotherapists' preference ratings indicate that they prefer to treat young clients over middle-aged clients and these over older clients. Preferences for treating older clients were related to the extent of the therapists' professional experience and knowledge of geriatric psychotherapy, as opposed to therapeutic orientation or degree of personal contact with older adults. Overall, therapists' preferences for treating different clients appeared to be related to perception of prognoses for different client groups.The present study examines the relationship between psychotherapists' preferences for treating persons over 65 years of age and the therapists' knowledge of, experience with, and exposure to psychotherapy with older adults. It has been well documented that older adults (persons aged 65 and older) suffer disproportionately from mental This study is based on the second author's doctoral dissertation. A previous version of this article was presented at the 1986 meeting of the Canadian Association on Gerontology in

The ratings of 414 respondents aged 17-81 years revealed strong biases against psychotherapy for older adults. Ratings of the value of psychotherapy and the benefit that clients could derive from psychotherapy decreased steadily with increasing target age. The respondents' ratings in the present study are consistent with psychotherapists' lower preferences for treating older adults found in a previous study (see Zivian, Larsen, Knox, Gekoski, & Hatchette, 1992). Together, the results of the two studies reveal biases that may explain why so few older adults seek and receive psychological services. The present study examined the general public's knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about psychotherapy for older adults. Two previous studies, Hochman, Storandt, & Rosenberg (1986) and Roy & Storandt (1989), investigated peoples' perceptions of the severity of psychopathology in older people, but, to the best of our knowledge, neither the general public's knowledge and beliefs This study is based on the second author's doctoral dissertation. A previous version of this article was presented at the 1986 meeting of the Canadian Association on Gerontology in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The authors wish to thank the staff and visitors of the Ontario Science Centre whose cooperation helped make this study possible.