Positive And Negative Effects On Culture And How They Affect The Age

The process of aging has been around as long as life itself. All living organisms pass through three broad stages from conception to death, which are maturation, maturity and aging. Aging affects everyone because nearly everyone has the potential to grow old and all the societies in which we live have older members (Macdonald, 1997). Gerontology is the use of reason to understand aging. The term was used to refer to the scientific study of aging, but nowadays it includes the study of aging using views from other disciplines such as humanities, social policy and human services. To correctly understand aging,

Ageism is endorsed throughout global culture and often is overlooked as a form of prejudice. However, this acceptance and ignorance towards an ageist culture, has proven to inflict severe mental, physical and emotional health implications. Although ageism is easily understood, it often goes unnoticed as a type of discrimination and unlike other prejudices, it will impact anyone who manages to make it to the sixth decade of live (Nelson, 2016). So, in hindsight it is discriminating against ones future self. Studies have identified that 80% of people aged 60 and older have experienced forms of ageism (Robbins, 2015). This figure is appalling considering the adverse health affects negative stereotyping can impose. In order to understand ageism and its affects it is vital to explore age prejudice from a multi-generational perspective. As well as understand the social-imagination contributing to a negative ideology of ageing. Only after understanding the aetiology of ageism, can interventions be put in place to eradicate this worldwide prejudice.

These ageist stereotypes are socially constructed for a number of reasons the major one being to maintain the status quo. There are many consequences of ageist stereotypes including outright disdain and dislike, subtle avoidance of contact, discrimination in employment and housing, and the creation of a fear of growing older. Even the youngest children demonstrate ageist beliefs about older people. These children's parents do not deliberately sit down and teach them these stereotypes. They learn them from all of society just as their parents learned them. This social construction of aging goes deep into society. It is in public policy, media, and just about every other major social institution. These factors can have tremendous influence on older adults and the aging experience.

Many people have an oversimplified and erroneous view of a certain group of people. Stereotypes are typically associated with having negative connotations of a particular group of people. In many occasions, positive qualities of the group are overlooked and they are instead categorized by social norms created by stereotypes. Stereotyping affects everyone, whether it is through the discrimination of age, race, gender

In Aging in the Land of the Young, Sharon Curtin talks about the old men and women in society and how they are seen through people’s eyes. She argues that aging means you no longer have the feeling of growing and goes into the Scientifics of aging. Curtin puts herself in their shoes to get the feel of how elderly get around. Getting her readers to understand how aging works, she puts in detail how it feels like to be at that age where every day it gets harder to walk feeling like the ground doesn’t match up with your steps and how tiring it can be. As upsetting as this sounded, she makes a good point that as you grow older you lose loved ones and the energy you have to do things. Although this aging process is different for ever one of us due

Ageism is becoming a major problem. The elderly population is predicted to double in the next eight years, having the effect of older people in the workforce, medical patients, and community members. This causes younger people to be around older people more often causing them to make generalizations. There has been an increased effort to stop age discrimination. Ageing is a natural occurring thing so most people in their lives will be affected by ageism. For one to fully understand ageism, one must know the definition, stereotypes, and the effect of those stereotypes.

Physical development continues to decline as one ages, typically experiencing weakened immune systems and a lessened ability to hear, see, smell and balance as well as before (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Because of such challenges, older adults are more prone to failing and hurting themselves, which can compound physical challenges and require adjustments to go about accomplishing once was normal daily life tasks.

An experiment performed on young and old people showed that when the participants were told negative stereotypes about their intellect they performed worse on memory tests than those who were not told a stereotype. This research concludes that negative stereotypes have a negative effect on a person’s mental capacity and increases their mental aging. The finding that negative thoughts about elders magnifies their mental decline is seen in another experiment performed on older American and Chinese people to test the mental aging across cultures. The Chinese elders, who are generally optimistic about their age, performed higher on different skill tests than the American elders, who are generally unhappy with aging, did. This shows that aging may be due to social reasons as well as natural aging. Ageism occurs almost everywhere, including hospitals and doctor’s offices. Many health professionals do not want to work with older patients because of the general stereotypes for old people and they sometimes do not receive the proper care and treatment that they need. This discrimination in the health care system adds to the decline of physical and mental health in older people. People who believe the age stereotypes are more prone to becoming those stereotypes. Getting rid of these negative stereotypes and not viewing aging as bad can improve a person’s mental and physical health as they age and help them live longer. Elders who tend to fall into the negative stereotypes tend to have a higher mortality rate than those who do not. Pushing positive views of aging and older people can greatly increase their overall quality of life. There are many different ways to eliminate negative views of aging. Being more open to the idea of growing old and retiring, shining light on the benefits of a great life after retirement, having strong social bonds, educating people of all ages

Aging is unavoidable in life yet their are so many stereotypes surrounding it. Stereotypes about the aging population play a huge role in how we think and interact with the individuals in the aging population. Stereotypes of aging are mostly myths or misrepresented beliefs about how people of that certain age should act or what their reality is meant to look like without regards for individual differences or circumstances.

Today, ageism appears in many forms, forms that involve discrimination and prejudgment. A few examples to demonstrate how the elderly are prejudged could be said as: When people of an older age forget of names of people, they are viewed as having a failing memory whereas when a person of a younger age forgets someone’s name that person is said to be merely forgetful. Another example could be the difference in hearing, elderly are said to be hard hearing whereas a person of a younger age is said to have “selective hearing”

aging recognizes that many people can age quite well in spite of frailties or adverse

It is important to do so because older individuals that have a more positive view of aging may live longer and have better psychological health (Ory et al, 2013). Furthermore, this article explores current stereotypes against the old and how they affect the function of older individuals and the proper ways to address older adults in regards to issues such as physical activity.

Three stereotypes about older adults are that they: contribute little to society, are disinterested in sex, and live in nursing rooms unable to get around without aid. The first stereotype is sourced from the World Health Organization; specifically, it states that, “older people are 'past their sell-by date' [and] helpless.” One con of this stereotype is that it creates the preconceived stereotype that older adults have nothing further to contribute to society. Rather, it assumes that the elderly are a drain on societal resources, due to their helplessness.

Regardless, the younger and older groups thus develop associations that characterize the elderly with negative portrayals that damage the opinions of themselves as well as being seen by others as a class of lesser individuals in society, causing serious detriment to their ideas of worth in society and providing a vicious and inescapable cycle that punishes someone for simply living to being older than the rest of society. Furthermore, there is a lack of general research into the actual status and opinions on aging in social psychology. This lack of data is a problem in the sense that the field is largely ignored and the mental and social health of these individuals who belong to this older group is largely unknown as very little is done in research of this group due to their perceived social irrelevance. General apathy towards the well-being of these more elderly individuals who are considered too old and without significantly good quality lives are also subject to this perceived social irrelevancy as they are deemed unworthy of physical resources that would improve their lives as certain organizations and individuals believe that said resources would be better spent on those individuals who possess the “good” and “productive” kind of

The geriatric population is surging across the world, “Triumphant advances in medicine combined with economic and social development are resulting in increased longevity in the world’s population” (Hanson, 2014, p. 225). Aging is an undeniable process, and though there are techniques and procedures that may minimize the appearance of aging, the biological process itself, is unpreventable. However, it is ironic that the Western world correlates and glorifies youth and beauty whilst it simultaneously holds prejudiced views against the aging process, even though every individual ages with every second that passes. Stereotypes are exaggerated, prejudiced, and distorted generalizations that degrade individual uniqueness by creation of