ASSIGNMENT ON GERONTOLOGY

Assignment on Gerontology



Assignment on Gerontology

Introduction

There is ample evidence to suggest that negative expectations and stereotypes about the competence of older adults pervade Western culture (e.g., Hummert, 1999; Kite and Wagner, 2002). For example, older adults are characterized as more forgetful and less able to learn new information (e.g., Hummert, Garstka, Shaner, and Strahm, 1994). In addition, young and old people alike believe that there is general memory decline across the latter half of the life span (Lineweaver and Hertzog, 1998; Ryan, 1992; Ryan and Kwong See, 1993). Research corroborates these views: there is abundant evidence that older adults do perform more poorly than younger adults across a wide variety of cognitive tasks (for a review, see Zacks, Hasher, and Li, 2000).

Discussion Analysis

Yet there is also evidence of older adults serving important roles in society. For example, nearly 40 percent of the nation's 1,200 working federal judges have reached senior status and could retire. But, these senior judges are crucial to the justice system and, handling reduced caseloads, carry out nearly 20 percent of the federal judiciary's work (Markon, 2001). This fact is also consistent with the literature on cognitive aging, which shows that reasoning about complex matters relevant to daily life—what some call wisdom-shows no deterioration with age (Baltes and Kunzmann, 2003). Yet pervasive beliefs about age-related decline tend to outweigh beliefs about positive aging in our culture. Most people expect that losses will outnumber gains as they get older (Heckhausen, Dixon, and Baltes, 1989); most people expect their abilities to decline with age (Staudinger, Bluck, and Herzberg, 2003).

Most of the work on stereotyping and aging documents this phenomenon. Far less examines the degree to which negative and positive stereotypes have an effect on the quality of life for older adults. Do negative expectations of older people and ageist beliefs lead people in general, as well as older adults themselves, to underestimate the capacities of older adults? Do positive expectations have the opposite effect?

Negative stereotypes can have harmful consequences for the quality of life of older adults and can also result in a major loss to society. With increases in life expectancy as well as reduced infirmity, many adults are aging well, but negative stereotypes of aging may put society at risk for losing the contributions of these vital and knowledgeable people. The potential individual and social effects underscore the need to understand the content of aging stereotypes in terms of their accuracy and applications. It is especially important to understand how negative stereotypes exacerbate poor performance in areas in which decline is real. That is, beliefs that memory is bad in old age can reduce motivation when increased motivation is needed instead. A framework for predicting and interpreting individuals' behavior is imperative to understand how aging stereotypes drive behavior in both positive and negative ways.

Social psychologists have a long history of studying stereotypes and their effects on judgment and behavior. As outlined in more detail below, stereotypes people have about others can influence how those others ...