Different Ways of Perceiving the Aging Process: Social Behaviors of Women and Men in Relation to Age Discrimination

Abstract

Based on the original survey "Relating to Older People Evaluation" (ROPE) by Cherry and Palmore (2008), we have elaborated the instrument Evaluation for Older Adults that consists of 20 items. In this project, we intend on studying the positive and negative behaviors which people have been able to internalize during their daily life, as well as a previous psychometric analysis about the validity of the instrument. The sample is formed by, on one side, students of Psycho pedagogy, and the other side, older students that belong to the Class of Experience of the University of Seville. The results obtained suggest that the majority of the people take into consideration the positive behaviors, and both the young and the older adults reinforce the behaviors of and toward the older adults. It is important to highlight the significant differences as far as gender in relation to the internalization of positive behaviors, being more frequent in women than in men. In the discussion, we analyze the implications about social perception towards older people as a social phenomenon, as well as the strategies to reduce the negative behaviors towards older people in daily life.

Using the Relating to Older People Evaluation tool to measure ageism in higher education

“…Adolescents and younger adults reported few ageist behaviours than middle aged and older adults, and women reported more positive ageist behaviours (Cherry et al 2016). Women tended to report less negative ageist behaviours (Shiovitz-Ezra et al 2016) whereas Garcia and Troyano (2013) found no differences between men and women. With 83% of the sample being female, nursing students' ageist attitudes became stronger as their studies progressed (Frost et al 2016).…”

“…Generalised discriminative behaviours occurred across all groups: most admitting one or more ageist behaviours (Cherry and Palmore 2008), and ageist attitudes were correlated with negative ageist behaviours (Cherry et al 2015). Whereas Cherry et al (2016) and Shiovitz-Ezra et al (2016) reported more positive ageism rather than negative ageist behaviours; 97.8% reporting they would "hold doors for older people" (Frost el al 2016), and 98% asking "for advice from an older person because of his or her age" (Garcia and Troyano 2013).…”

“…Studies were completed in the United States of America (Cherry and Palmore 2008;Cherry et al 2015;Cherry et al 2016), Spain (Garcia and Troyano 2013), Australia (Frost et al 2016) and Israel (Shiovitz-Ezra et al 2016). Different studies included a variety of populations such as college students, members of university staff, community dwelling older adults (Cherry and Palmore, 2008); undergraduate and graduate students, university staff, middle-age and older adults (Cherry et al 2015); adolescents attending high school, young, middle and older adults enrolled on university courses (Cherry et al 2016); psycho-pedagogy students (Garcia and Troyano, 2013); general population over 21 years showing a high level of education (Shiovitz-Ezra et al 2016) and one study on 1 st year nursing students (Frost et al 2016). Three studies reported the mean and standard deviation of positive and negative ageist behaviours.…”

“…The remaining three studies report percentages of positive and negative behaviours for participants per question (Cherry and Palmore, 2008;Frost et al 2016;Shiovitz-Ezra et al 2016). Shiovitz-Ezra et al (2016) excluded three of the questions from ROPE, whilst Garcia and Troyano (2013) presented percentages of overall positive and negative ageist behaviours. No further statistical analysis was possible or appropriate.…”

“…All studies explored students and other members of the university community in the HE setting. Garcia and Troyano (2013) applied the ROPE to two student groups, 4th and 5th year psychopedagogy students and some older students, with 84% reporting intergenerational relationships with grandparents. Both groups of students displayed frequent age discriminative behaviours, with positive behaviours being reported more frequent than negative ones.…”