Stereotype Threat Elderly

In a study conducted by Ford and Tonander (1998), it was hypothesized that when one’s social identity was threatened by a group who is largely different from them, that individual is likely to form stereotypes. This is based

Stereotypes are socially constructed, over-generalized views regarding a particular group of persons with certain characteristics that are widely accepted, and usually expected, in a society. The dominant group of a certain society, which in this case is probably Caucasians and men, usually creates these social constructions. Claude M. Steele, a researcher from Stanford University, performed multiple research studies on the idea and psychological effects of stereotypes on its victims. In his studies, he coins the term “stereotype threat” as the “social-psychological predicament that can arise from widely-known negative stereotypes about one's group,” which implies that “the existence of such a stereotype means that anything one does or any of one's features that conform to it make the stereotype more plausible as a self-characterization in the eyes of others, and perhaps even in one's own eyes” (Steele 797).

Cultural influence affects not only the formation of a stereotype, but also its acceptance. According to the tripartite model of attitudes, a stereotype is the cognitive component of prejudiced attitudes. Many contemporary theorists suggest prejudice is an inevitable consequence of the stereotyping process (Devine, 1989). This makes learning attitudes and stereotypes of social groups inevitable. There is strong evidence that stereotypes are established in children’s memories before they have the ability to use cognitive processing to accept or reject the stereotypes. In this developmental process, the stereotype is easier to access for the child than personal beliefs; therefore, the culture an individual lives in makes it impossible not to apply stereotypes in daily life (Devine, 1989).

In life, there is a common ground on which most every person can relate. At one time or another, we have all been promoters of or victims of the unremitting nature of stereotypes. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” Most stereotypes take on a negative form and are based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, status, and personal beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest problem that arises with stereotypes is that they judge group of people by the characteristics and actions of their ancestors, rather than on an individual basis. More often than not, these assumptions will

To stress the prevalence of the effects of stereotypes, Steele repeated his first experiment with white men and Asian men as the subjects. As the dominant group, white people are often unaffected by the stereotype, but in this particular experiment they underperformed greatly. Stereotypes even exist within racial groups. In one experiment, Steele had older people and younger people try to memorize 30 words for two minutes. Afterwards, they would try to write down as many words as they can. The group of older people who read an article confirming that age impairs memory wrote down significantly fewer words than the group of older people that did not receive the treatment. This is also an example of ageism (Henslin, 2017). A common motif in Steele’s experiments is a reminder of the stereotype, referred to as a cue. The experiments demonstrate that the smallest hint of a stereotype is enough of a cue to cause underperformance. In an experiment with girls and boys ages five to seven, the only difference between the treatment and control group was coloring a picture of a doll.

Memory retrieval skills gradually deteriorate over a person’s lifespan. It becomes harder to remember events and recall what was learned. Forgetting something doesn’t mean the memory is gone, it’s just a retrieval failure. Inside Out displays what happens to long term memories when they are forgotten. We see that the glassy memory orbs darken and desaturate in color, and ‘mind workers’ regularly clean out the old memories. This is quite similar to pruning, as it shows how not all memories retain the same duration. There are ways, however, to improve retrieval. Professors McDermott and Roediger suggest, “Relating new information to what one already knows, forming mental images, and creating associations among information that needs to be remembered. (McDermott & Roediger,

A topic I learned more of this semester in regards to the older population was dementia. Some loss in memory function is an inevitable consequence of aging, and as one ages, it takes more time to process information and retrieve memories. However, "Dementia is a general term that refers to progressive, degenerative brain dysfunction, including deterioration in memory, concentration, language skills, visuospatial skills, and reasoning, that interferes with a person's daily functioning" (Mauk, 2014, p. 377). This loss of mental skills affects the ability to function over time, causing problems with memory and how one thinks, impacting these individual's overall quality of life.

In the case of older adults, common ageist stereotypes might suggest that any individual older than age 65 is mentally and physically incapacitated, even though the overwhelming of the older adults are not (Plassman etal.,2007). Stereotypes are defined as oversimplified, exaggerated beliefs about a group or category of people. Stereotypes may be positive or negative, usually negative, which often distort facts. For instance, overgeneralizations surrounding older people and the aging process is old age begins at 60, old people are unproductive , and old women are a burden to everyone are amongst a couple stereotypes older people face. Members of society have been socialize to belief that age can be mark or measure. The dilemma with attempting to measure age is it is subjective to each society. In attempts to categorize members of society by age people often use chorological age, functional status, or life stage. Chronological age is used in our society as the basis for determining many social roles (voting, driving, marrying, holding public office, for eligibility in social programs (such as social security, AARP membership, or Older American Act), and for inclusion in research about aging (Morgan, Kunkel, 2011:7). Chronological age measures age by major life transitions in society. Thus, categorizing people as

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

According to the article negative stereotypes geared towards older people can actually cut the lifespan of adults in late adulthood. In the article, the author references a study of 660 people ages 50 years of age and older, and found that those with negative perceptions of their own aging lived 7.5 years less than their counterparts

Cognitive aging is commonly labeled strictly as memory and only found in “some people”. However, this is not true. The knowledge of cognitive aging has grown immensely, but there is still much to be learned. The surface has only been scratched with many more questions to be answered. Cognitive aging is worthy of study and effects everyone, but there is also much more is still to be learned.

Memory is the conscious and unconscious recollection of recent and past information that has been obtained through information processing (Brickman & Stern, 2009; Cavanaugh, Blachard-Fields & Norris, 2008). Memory is an essential aspect of our daily activities from making breakfast, to brushing our teeth (Cavanaugh, Blachard-Fields & Norris, 2008). People have distinctive memory self efficacy, and peculiar information or experiences stored in the corresponding memory systems, which results in the development of unique self identities (Cavanaugh, Blachard-Fields & Norris, 2008). However, memory losses or lapses could result in the perception of lost sense of identity (Cavanaugh, Blachard-Fields & Norris, 2008), which could also be frustrating and of great concern for older adults labelling these losses as mental illness symptoms such as dementia (“Age- Related Memory Loss: What’s Normal, What’s Not, and When to

Cognitive Bases of StereotypingThe Relationship between Categorization and Prejudice Shelley E. Taylor & Hsiao-Ti Falcone

When it comes to older adults, one of the aspects that can affect memory is stereotypes. In their work, the researchers provided a thorough review of this phenomenon, which was labeled as stereotype threat effect. On a whole, this is when knowledge of a stereotype influences behavior. For example, experimentally activating negative stereotypes of aging can cause

Furthermore, these processes are potentially subject to bias due to “the assimilative effects of existing knowledge on information processing” (Macrae, Stangor & Hewstone, 1996). It is essential to comprehend these concepts before delving into the importance of stereotypes when forming impressions of others. In the initial stage of developing schemas, they allow the individual to ignore what is perceived to be unimportant or unnecessary details of a situation, thus reducing the complexity of the information (Macrae, Stangor & Hewstone, 1996). Indeed, schemas guide behaviour and allow a platform for individuals to make mental shortcuts and damaging stereotypes, they can also simplify life and are useful in every day situations (Macrae, Stangor & Hewstone, 1996). For example, if one had an existing stereotype that guns are dangerous and hastily decided to move to the other side of the street after noticing a man with a gun – this would be an extremely useful and possibly life-saving use of a stereotype. However, whether stereotypes are considered to be beneficial or unconstructive – they are undeniably important when forming impressions of other