Positive Portrayals of Old Age Do Not Always Have Positive Consequences

Attitudes to ageing mediates the relationship between perception of age-friendly city and life satisfaction among middle-aged and older people in Macao: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Societal attitudes toward ageing play a significant role in shaping one's ageing experience, and an age-friendly environment can potentially enhance the life satisfaction of older individuals. The objective of this study is to examine the role of attitudes to ageing as mediators in the association between the perception of an age-friendly city and life satisfaction among middle-aged and older adults.

METHODS

Using the tools of Age-Friendly City (AFC) criteria, Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire (AAQ) to measure psychosocial loss, psychological growth, and physical change, and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) to assess the level of life satisfaction among community-dwelling middle-aged and older people in Macao. Multiple mediation analysis was performed to test the mediation effect.

RESULTS

A total of 543 participants were included in this study. The average score of AFC was 4.25, the total scores of psychosocial loss, physical change, and psychological growth were 24.06, 29.00, and 26.94 respectively. The total score of SWLS was 24.06. There was a partial mediation of attitudes to ageing in the relationship between perception of age-friendly city and life satisfaction. The mediation effect explained 56.1% of the total effect of AFC to life satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

The development of an age-friendly city can help improve the public's view on ageing, and thus improve their life satisfaction. It is important for government to consider the improvement of people's attitudes to ageing when developing policies regarding AFC.

Representations of older people in Turkish prime-time TV series and Netflix original Turkish series: A comparative content analysis

In this study, older characters that appeared in all the episodes of the first seasons of eight most popular Turkish TV series on prime-time televisions in Turkey and those appeared in all the episodes of the first seasons of eight "original" Turkish series on Netflix were submitted to a comparative quantitative and qualitative content analysis. In this sense, the aim of this study was to reveal what kind of old age is promised to viewers by such media environments as TV and Netflix. Findings revealed that, when compared to the Turkish population, older people were significantly underrepresented in prime-time series and that, in other words, they were symbolically eliminated and exposed to age discrimination. Another finding is that older people were portrayed more fairly on Netflix than TV. Although older individuals were inadequately represented on Netflix as well, the difference between the two platforms was not statistically significant. On the other hand, while older women are significantly less represented than older men on both platforms, the study found no significant difference in gender representation between Netflix and prime-time TV. The findings also indicated that no older character, when evaluated qualitatively, was represented as the major character on either platforms and that, especially when it comes to having a profession, older people, specifically older women, were portrayed more negatively on both platforms, which means that older women faced a double jeopardy.

Do media portrayals of super-agers reduce or increase ageism toward older adults?

Super-agers are older adults with exemplary cognitive and/or physical abilities. However, the impact of media portrayals of super-agers is unknown. This study examined whether exposure to mass media stories about "moderate" super-agers (exemplary cognitive and physical skill levels) versus "extreme" super-agers (most extreme cognitive and physical skill levels) impacts young adults' ageism. Undergraduate participants exposed to media portrayals of moderate super-agers reported greater agreement with positive age stereotypes toward older adults, whereas participants exposed to extreme super-agers reported lower levels of ageism as compared to control participants. Based on these findings, young adults may perceive super-agers in a positive manner as super-agers highlight positive attributes. Since super-agers are often portrayed as defying negative stereotypes through diligence and a positive outlook (less so through good genes or access to healthcare), exposure to super-agers could have negative effects, which is an important future direction.

Brief Anti-Ageism Messaging Effects on Physical Activity Motivation Among Older Adults

When people have more negative perceptions about aging or attribute health decline to old age, they engage in less health promotion behavior. We tested whether an intervention of brief anti-ageism messages addressing views of aging could motivate engagement in physical activities at senior centers. Attendees aged 50 and older ( n = 349; Mage = 72, SD = 9) at seven centers were randomly assigned to read one of three intervention messages (different approaches addressing views of aging) or to not read a message before rating their likelihood of attending a variety of center programs, including physical activities. Multilevel regression models indicated the intervention increased motivation to attend physical activities compared with the control group among participants aged 72 and older. The three anti-ageism messages were similarly effective suggesting some flexibility in framing. The results indicate anti-ageism messages may be a scalable, low-cost approach to promoting physical activity in older adults.

Attitudes Toward Aging: A Glance Back at Research Developments Over the Past 75 Years

With global aging, it is crucial to understand how older adults and the process of aging are viewed by members of society. These attitudes can often influence how older adults are treated. Since the Journal of Gerontology was founded, we have gained increasing insights into attitudes toward aging, with several notable research developments, including clearer conceptualization of different types of aging attitudes (e.g., life-domain-specific attitudes and self-perceptions of aging), a wider variety of measurements, better understanding of how different social determinants shape aging attitudes, and more sophisticated investigations of cultural variance and invariance in aging attitudes. In this article, we highlight these major shifts in the field of aging attitudes in the past 75 years, discuss the contributions of these developments, and point to potential future directions.

Attitudes Toward Retirement Drive the Effects of Retirement Preparation on Psychological and Physical Well-Being of Hong Kong Chinese Retirees Over Time

Recent findings on retirement preparation found a positive impact on the psychological and physical well-being of retirees. However, the types of mental resources that are driving the relationship, such as attitudes toward retirement, only received limited attention. Reasoning from previous findings, we posit that attitudes toward retirement would explain the relationship between retirement preparation and well-being over time after retirement. A three-wave study was conducted in a sample of 130 Hong Kong Chinese retirees over a period of 1.5 years. Data were collected 6 months prior to retirement (T1) and 6 and 12 months after retirement (T2 and T3, respectively), in which preretirement preparation, attitudes toward retirement, and psychological and physical well-being were measured. The positive effect of T1 retirement planning on T3 physical and psychological well-being was partially mediated by T2 attitudes toward retirement. These results remain significant even after controlling for gender, education level, preretirement occupation, and well-being at T1. These findings reveal the role of attitudes toward retirement in driving postretirement adjustment over time.

The Effect of Negative Aging Self-Stereotypes on Satisfaction With Social Support

OBJECTIVES

Previous studies have demonstrated a relationship between negative age self-stereotypes and social support satisfaction. This study examined whether negative age stereotype plays a causal role, and whether health anxiety is a possible mediator, in this relationship.

METHODS

A total of 114 Chinese older persons were randomly assigned into three experimental conditions. In two of the conditions, participants were primed with either negative or positive age stereotypes using a sentence unscrambling task, before responding to measures of self-perception of aging, health anxiety, and satisfaction with family and nonfamily support. Those in the control condition responded to the same questions without priming.

RESULTS

Main effects of priming were found across the board except for satisfaction with nonfamily support. In general, participants primed with negative age stereotypes reported more negative self-perception of aging, higher health anxiety, and lower satisfaction with family support, compared with control or those primed with positive age stereotypes. However, the effect on family support satisfaction could not be explained by concomitant experimental effect on health anxiety.

DISCUSSION

The central role of the family as a support provider might be the reason why the activation of negative age stereotypes led to less satisfaction with family, but not nonfamily.

The portrayal of elderly men and women in Hungarian television news programmes

Mass media research on the portrayal of older people has primarily focused on television series and advertisements. News programmes on television have received little attention. We argue that viewers perceive characters on the news as more direct and more accurate representations of social reality than fictional characters, and therefore portrayals on the news are more likely to be integrated in viewers’ stereotypes about elderly people or used as standards of comparison. In order to explore potential differences in the representation of senior men and women, we conducted a quantitative content analysis on a sample of 754 elderly people who appeared on the evening news programmes of four major Hungarian television channels with high viewership. Each character was coded in terms of 115 qualitative variables. Our results indicate that older men are portrayed significantly more often than women as affluent, elegant, knowledgeable, powerful and actively working. By contrast, women are more commonly shown as kind, family-oriented, in ordinary roles (e.g. as the ‘woman in the street’) and engaged in less-productive activities such as shopping. Based on previous research on the role of mass media in the socialisation process as well as social comparison theory, we discuss how these imbalances in the representation of older men and women may affect viewers of different age groups, genders and social status.

Managing expectations: How stress, social support, and aging attitudes affect awareness of age-related changes

The degree to which social support (SS) moderates the effects of stress on self-perceptions of aging may depend on individual differences in general aging attitudes. We examined how stress, different types of SS, and general expectations regarding aging (ERA) affect awareness of age-related changes (AARCs). The sample included 137 adults (21-76 years; 56.2% women) who took an online survey on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Regression analyses showed differential moderation of stress effects due to ERA and the SS measure (perceived and received) and function (emotional and instrumental). Received emotional SS was only associated with AARC losses, whereas perceived support-both emotional and instrumental-was associated with AARC gains and losses. Findings may help guide future work aimed at promoting health and well-being in adulthood.

Age-Stereotype Internalization and Dissociation: Contradictory Processes or Two Sides of the Same Coin?

There is overwhelming evidence that age stereotypes have systematic effects on older adults’ development. Regarding the direction of these effects, two seemingly opposing phenomena can be observed. On the one hand, it has been shown that older adults engage in self-stereotyping and assimilate their self-views and behavior to commonly held age stereotypes, a process described as stereotype internalization. On the other hand, there is considerable evidence for age-group dissociation, showing that when confronted with negative age stereotypes, older adults tend to distance and dissociate themselves from this negative stereotype. In addition to reviewing evidence for both processes and their respective adaptivity, we propose an integrated model of age-stereotype internalization and dissociation to explain when and why older adults internalize or dissociate from negative age stereotypes.

Self-Perception of Aging and Satisfaction With Children's Support

Objectives

Those with self-beliefs in negative aging may desire a stronger support network to buffer against potential threats and may hence see their current network as less than adequate. This study investigated whether negative self-perception of aging is associated with increased dissatisfaction with children's support.

Method

Six hundred and forty Chinese older adults with at least one child and a total of 2,108 adult children rated the degree of support received from each child individually and the degree to which it met their expectation. Additionally, the participants responded to measures of self-perception of aging (both positive and negative), neuroticism, instrumental activities of daily living, chronic illnesses, financial strain, and living status. The multilevel dataset was analyzed using mixed-effects regression.

Results

Individuals who had a more negative self-perception of aging, who were younger, who lived alone, and who had fewer children provided lower support satisfaction ratings after support received from children was controlled for. Positive self-perception of aging was unrelated to support satisfaction. Neuroticism did not account for the relationship between negative self-perception of aging and support satisfaction.

Discussion

A negative self-perception of aging may create vulnerability to intergenerational tension that puts older people at risk of adverse psychological and physical health outcomes.