An experimental investigation of a simulated online intergenerational friendship

Lytle, Ashley; Macdonald, Jamie; Levy, Sheri R.

doi:10.1080/02701960.2021.2023810

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…In creating opportunities for intergenerational contact, it is vital that these opportunities are reconceived as experiences beneficial to both the young and old rather than as a service which positions older adults as recipients of help. Leveraging social media to reach a broader audience—especially during this time when physical interaction is limited—may also prove useful for building intergenerational relationships (Lytle et al., 2022; Ng & Indran, 2022b; Spaccatini et al., 2022; Sutter et al., 2022) and will complement existing offline interventions aimed at reducing ageism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Indran

Liu

2022

Journal of Social Issues

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The COVID‐19 crisis has sparked a resurgence of scholarly interest in the issue of ageism. Whether the outbreak thwarts or facilitates efforts to combat ageism hinges upon public sentiments toward the older demographic. This study aims to explore discourse surrounding older adults by analyzing 183,179 related tweets posted during the COVID‐19 pandemic from February to December 2020. Overall, sentiments toward older adults became significantly less negative over time, being the least negative in April, August, and October, though the score remained below the neutral value throughout the 11 months. Our topic modelling analysis generated four themes: “The Need to Protect Older Adults” (41%), “Vulnerability and Mortality” (36%), “Failure of Political Leadership” (12%), and “Resilience” (11%). These findings indicate nascent support for older adults, though attempts to show solidarity may well worsen benevolent ageism.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Indran

Liu

2022

Journal of Social Issues

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“…Thus, our results indicate that interventions to reduce ageism in older adults do not need to be time-consuming and expensive. A recent study reached the same conclusion, but its authors reduced age discrimination and improved the behavior of undergraduate students through a single-session online intergenerational friendship intervention (Lytle et al, 2022). While one-session educational interventions remain understudied, such a feasible intervention structure may serve to ease the way for participants to engage in new, longer educational interventions (Couper & Pratt, 1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Reducing Negative Aging StereotypesviaEducational Intervention in Older People: A Randomized Controlled Study

et al. 2022

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Anti-ageism interventions traditionally target younger individuals. We analyzed the effect of an educational intervention that combined an infusion of aging content with videos to reduce negative stereotypes toward aging in a randomized controlled study of 56 community-dwelling older adults. The experimental group received a single one-hour information session and video viewing on ageism; the control group viewed 1 hour of videos unrelated to ageism. Repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that the experimental group reported a significantly reduced Negative Stereotypes Toward Aging Questionnaire (CENVE) total score along with an independent measure of the character–personality factor in this questionnaire 1 week and 1 month after the intervention compared to baseline. The control group showed no changes. This work reports for the first time that a one-hour information session about aging combined with video viewing on ageism can efficiently reduce negative stereotypes of aging in older people in the short and medium term.

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“…For instance, the manipulation check of inducing intergroup friendship often relies on proxies, such as induced closeness between interaction partners (Page-Gould et al, 2008), which might be typical not only for friendships but also for positive interactions in general. Thus, experimental evidence found in support of a positive effect of intergroup friendship on outgroup attitudes (Kende et al, 2017;Lytle et al, 2023;Lytle & Levy, 2015;Page-Gould et al, 2008) could also apply in the context of close and repeated interactions with outgroup members. In schools, the number of outgroup friends students have does not preclude them from having positive interactions with other outgroup classmates.…”

Section: Exposure To Outgroup Peersmentioning

confidence: 94%

On the Spurious Effect of Intergroup Friendship on Outgroup Attitudes in Schools: The Role of Social Influence and the Positive Impact of Exposure to Outgroup Peers

Zingora

2023

Preprint

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Intergroup friendship in schools is regarded as a powerful strategy for improving outgroup attitudes. However, stochastic actor-oriented modeling (SAOM) studies have often revealed no association between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes. We investigated whether SAOM studies reported no effect of intergroup friendship on outgroup attitudes, what was responsible for this surprising finding, and whether exposure to outgroup peers was positively related to outgroup attitudes. Our meta-analysis of SAOM studies confirms no association between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes. Examining longitudinal social network data of 2,700 German students, we found that a positive link between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes appeared only when we did not control for social influence. Exposure to outgroup peers was, however, positively associated with outgroup attitudes. These findings reframe intergroup contact theory by suggesting that intergroup friendship is not essential for improving outgroup attitudes. Instead, social influence and exposure to outgroup peers affect their outgroup attitudes.

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An experimental investigation of a simulated online intergenerational friendship

Cited by 6 publications

References 46 publications

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Reducing Negative Aging StereotypesviaEducational Intervention in Older People: A Randomized Controlled Study

On the Spurious Effect of Intergroup Friendship on Outgroup Attitudes in Schools: The Role of Social Influence and the Positive Impact of Exposure to Outgroup Peers

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