Age and typicality judgments of stereotypes of the elderly: perceptions of elderly vs. young adults.

Abstract

Healthy community-dwelling elderly individuals assessed the typicality and approximate age of individuals representing ten stereotypes of elderly people identified in prior research with young adults. Results showed that, as predicted, the elderly adults saw the stereotypes as less typical of elderly individuals than did the young adults, although both groups agreed on which stereotypes were most typical of the general elderly population. Analysis of age judgments revealed that the elderly respondents, in comparison to the young adults, were more likely to use the old-old age ranges to describe the stereotypes, and much less likely to associate the positive stereotypes with the young-old age ranges. Both elderly and young adults tended to associate negative stereotypes with the older elderly age ranges.