Stereotyping the Elderly

Stereotyping the Elderly

In a world full of information, we must find a way to organize incoming data; otherwise, we would likely flounder with disorganized stimulation overload. One of the ways in which we do this is through stereotyping. This is somewhat of an unfortunate and seemingly universal tactic of categorization we apply, that more often than not, has negative effects for the population being labeled. One such population that seems to be pervasively labeled with negative connotations is that of the Elderly; and so, in further exploration of the prevalence of ageism, ten young-adult participants were interviewed about what three terms come to mind when they hear the term “old person”. I will discuss the results further in terms of ageist stereotyping, and its possible implications.

Within the cohort interviewed, responses indicated an even split between positive and negative terms to describe an “old person” with eleven in each category and the remaining classified as neutral responses (see Table A1 in Appendix for more detailed description of the interview reports). Even with this balanced split, the negative terms indicate persisting unfavourable stereotyping that likely leads to discriminatory behaviour towards this population, on the basis of their age. For example, associating all elderly people with illness could influence this person to avoid interaction with this population, ultimately leading to isolation and ostracization of elderly people – which in itself is detrimental to health. Similarly, overgeneralization of elderly people as stubborn and challenging in disposition could make one’s interactional approach to the elderly prone to more defensive and aggressive altercation.

Furthermore, it is too possible that positive terms used to describe elderly people may not actually be advantageous either, as even benevolent stereotyping can have drawbacks. Though generalizing the elderly as gentle, calm, and cute is seemingly positive, it is also patronizing, and may serve to undermine the elderly’s abilities, rights, freedoms, and threatens their social status, although benevolent stereotyping is certainly the lesser evil to hostile stereotyping as noted above, both can be regarded as evidence of ageism.

It is interesting to note that some of the participants interviewed have much personal experience with a variety of elderly people through their workplaces, and it is these participants who mainly provided positive terms in response to describing “old person”, compared to the rest of the interviewees who have far less extensive personal experience with this population. It could be perhaps that all this personal interaction with variety of individuals from the elderly population provided these particular participants with disconfirming evidence of the well-known negative stereotypes. Such as, working at a community center that offers fitness

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