Title: Activation of Aging Stereotypes in Younger and Older Adults | The Journals of Gerontology: Series B | Oxford Academic
Headings: The Activation of Aging Stereotypes in Younger and Older Adults
The Activation of Aging Stereotypes in Younger and Older Adults
Published:
Abstract
Issue Section:
Methods
Overview
Participants and Design
Stimuli
Procedure
Results
Explicit Aging Attitude Measure
Implicit Measure
Age-Based Stereotyping
Age-Based Prejudice
Discussion
Automatic Stereotyping
Automatic Prejudice
Appendix
Notes
References

Content: Hummert, Shaner, & Garstka, 1995; Kite & Johnson, 1988 ). In general, this research has suggested that people's perceptions of elderly adults are mixed. People associate both positive and negative traits with older people as a group, although there tend to be more negative trait associations than positive ones ( Hummert et al., 1995 ). Research on the cognitive organization of traits has shown there are multiple stereotypes or subcategories of elderly people, some positive and some negative ( Brewer, Dull, & Lui, 1981; Hummert, Garstka, Shaner, & Strahm, 1994; Schmidt & Boland, 1986 ). Finally, Hummert and colleagues (1994) found a fair degree of overlap in the organization of the subcategories across young, middle-aged, and older adults, although elderly people had the most complex representations of older people, followed by middle-aged and young adults. Thus, research using explicit measures has shown that aging stereotypes are complex, with both positive and negative traits and subtypes being associated with elderly people.