Progress on Understanding Ageism

Abstract

Almost 50 years ago, ageism (negative attitudes toward older adults) was introduced as a significant social issue. Since then, the worldwide population of adults ages 60 and over has rapidly become the fastest growing age group, making the study of ageism an even more pressing social issue. This review outlines three broad and intertwined themes as the field continues to develop a fuller understanding of ageism: studying both positive and negative aspects of ageism, taking a lifespan focus, and integrating the study of ageism with the study of aging. The review also focuses on several timely subthemes such as the need and benefits of expanding measures of ageism and intervening variables, expanding the diversity of study samples, expanding the research methodologies, and expanding the contexts under study toward greater cross‐cultural and within‐culture investigations. This review and the international, interdisciplinary research showcased in this special issue are intended to set the stage for the next wave of international research on ageism across the lifecycle and of effective interventions and public policies supporting older adults and positive intergenerational relations.

Ageism in the Workplace: The Role of Psychosocial Factors in Predicting Job Satisfaction, Commitment, and Engagement

“…To obtain a more complete understanding of the psychosocial factors influencing job satisfaction, commitment, and engagement, this study utilizes an age diverse national community sample of 800 workers from a range of occupations, organizations, and socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States. This study is consistent with calls for a “lifespan” approach to studying ageism across the life course (Giles & Reid, ; Levy & Macdonald, ) and calls for the use of social psychological theories to better understand psychosocial factors in the workplace (Abben, Brown, Graupmann, Mockler, & Fernandes, ).…”

Stereotypes about Old Age, Social Support, Aging Anxiety and Evaluations of One's Own Health

“…We attempted to address previous research gaps such as the fact that most research in the field comes from Western cultures by studying Colombia. Also, past research has tended to focus on college students and persons aged 65 and older (e.g., see Levy & Macdonald, ). We addressed this issue by collecting information from a community sample in the capital city of Bogotá.…”

“…This version of the scale was adapted from Bosma et al. () and from Macdonald and Levy (), and had good internal reliability (α = .78).…”

Nursing students’ preferences for clinical placements in the residential aged care setting

“…The key study limitation is that the student comments that comprise the data for this study are about the students’ subsequent placement preference and so cannot necessarily be equated with more general attitudes towards aged care placements and to working in this setting. The literature documents the presence of ageist attitudes within nursing (Phelan, ), and society more broadly (Levy & Macdonald, ; Vauclair et al., ), that undergraduates may also ascribe to. However, one would reasonably expect that such attitudes would not be openly expressed in the data explored.…”