There may Not be a Cultural Life Script for Public Events, But there is a Youth Bias: Response to Janssen (2014)

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SummaryJanssen asserts that, in a recent paper, we introduced the concept of a cultural life script for public events, in the form of the youth bias. Moreover, he contends that we claimed to have found evidence for such a life script. Correspondingly, he frames his own failure to find evidence for a life script for public events as a rebuttal of our paper. We demonstrate, however, that the youth bias is in fact conceptually and methodologically distinct from life scripts. We conclude that we therefore deserve no credit for the concept of a cultural life script for public events and that Janssen's critique of our paper rests on a misinterpretation of our central concept. Lastly, we argue that, although Janssen may not have found evidence for a life script for public events, his study serves as a confirmation and extension of the youth bias. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.