Age Stereotyping College Student Evaluations WILLIAM C. LEVIN Bridgewater State College College students from California, Tennessee, and Massachusetts evaluated 19 characteristics of a 25-, 52-, or 73-year-old stimulus person on semantic differential scales. Results revealed significantly more negative evaluations of the person when he was older than when he was either middle-aged or younger and were consistent for all three regions of the country. Since Barron’s (1953) proposal that the elderly have some of the characteristics of a minority group, researchers have attempted to document empirically the extent to which this group has been subjected to discrimination and prejudice. This is an especially important question today given the suggestion by some social gerontologists that the existence of age stereotypes in America has been exaggerated (Kogan, 1979; Schonfield, 1982) and by others that attitudes toward the elderly have become increasingly positive (Tibbitts, 1979; Austin, 1985). While it is possible that age stereotyping has declined, it is also possible that it has merely become more difficult to document. That is, given the public attention that “ageism” received in the 1970s, it may be that respondents have become unwilling to express such stereotypes publicly, and that they can now be better uncovered by experimental methods than by those of survey research. There is precedent from the study of racism for this AUTHOR'S NOTE: This research was supported in part by grants from the Bridgewater State College Faculty Research Program and the Alumni Foundation. RESEARCH ON AGING, Vol. 10 No. 1, March 1988 134-148 © 1988 Sage Publications, Inc. 134 from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights ReservedLevin / AGESTEREOTYPING 135 phenomenon. After the great increase in attention to issues of race in the 1950s and 1960s, a number of studies reported declines in racist attitudes in the culture (Karlins, Coffman and Walters, 1969; Taylor, Sheatsley, and Greeley, 1978). However, it was also suggested by some research that attention to issues of race had made the expression of racial stereotypes socially unacceptable and that measured declines in stereotyping may have been the result of “a little fading and a little faking” (Sigall and Page, 1971). Many of the studies reporting age stereotyping in the culture have been criticized for their employment of survey research techniques (McTavish, 1971; Cochran, 1977; Green, 1981, Braith- waite, Gibson, and Holman, 1986). Among the problems raised are (1) the transparency and social desirability effect of asking respondents to express negative attitudes toward the elderly (Green, 1981), (2) the inaccuracies inherent in evaluating a group of people as heterogeneous as the elderly by the use of generalized stimuli such as “older people” (Braithwaite, Gibson, and Holman, 1986), and (3) the creation of unrealistic contexts in which evaluations are made (Green, 1981). To deal with these problems some research has employed experimental methods (Bell and Stanfield, 1973; Crockett, Press, and Osterkamp, 1979; O’Connell and Rotter, 1979; Levin and Levin, 1981; Banziger and Drevenstedt, 1982; Puckett et al., 1983). Experimental designs allow the researcher to deal with (1) transparency and social desirability effect, by concealing from subjects the intent of the study to test for the existence of age stereotypes; (2) generalized targets, by presenting a specific “stimulus person” about whom evaluations are made; and (3) unrealistic or absent, contexts by presenting the stimulus person in a concrete, realistic setting in which he or she might be found and evaluated. The criticisms of the contexts in which evaluations of older persons have been measured present a particularly difficult problem. For example, Green (1981) has contended that where evaluations are made of old people as a general category, negative perceptions have been found. However, when individual targets are rated, no such stereotyping is found. In addition, Wingard,136 RESEARCH ON AGING Heath, and Himelstein (1982) examined the effects of procedural context and reported that when subjects are asked to evaluate the characteristics of old versus young people, significantly more negative attitudes toward the elderly are discovered than when evaluations are made of old people only. To deal with these problems, the present study consisted of a series of experimental sessions in which each subject was presented at random with one of three photographs taken of the same person, each photograph having been taken at a different age in his life (25, 52, and 73: see photographs). Subjects were then asked to read the resume data of the person whose photograph they had received (this information was bogus and was held constant for the three conditions) and, after looking at the photograph, to make evaluations of his characteristics on a series of dependent variable measures. (See Methods section for more detail.) It was expected that the problems of generalized evalua- tion and of context would be resolved since (1) each subject received only one photograph to evaluate, (2) the evaluations were of the individual and not made in comparison with any other individual or age group, and (3) the simulation of a job candidate’s evaluation would be seen as concrete and realistic. That is, it was hoped that the context in which age-related judgments were being made would be like the real world. It was hypothesized that the older “stimulus person” would be more negatively evaluated than he would be in either his middle- aged or younger photographs. It was further hypothesized that since age stereotyping is a characteristic of the overall culture, such differences would be found in all three samples and that male and female evaluations would not differ by age of the stimulus person. Method SUBJECTS The subjects for this study were three samples (approximately 170 each sample) of undergraduate students enrolled in intro-Levin / AGESTEREOTYPING 137 Figure 1 ductory courses in economics and management at San Francisco State University, East Tennessee State University, and Salem State College (Massachusetts). Subjects at each of the campuses138 RESEARCH ON AGING did not differ by mean age (X = 20.83, X = 21.16, X = 21.28, F=.97, p <..381). Participation was voluntary and anonymous. MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE In each experimental session during regular class meetings, subjects were told the following by the researcher: There have recently been some studies conducted in social psychology that have identified some very successful managers who displayed an uncanny ability to accurately evaluate the qualities of job candidates on the basis of very little information. A. number of personnel officers were shown photographs of job candidates and given a few facts from the candidates’ resumes. They then made guesses about the characteristics of the people in the photographs. Surprisingly, the individuals who made the most accurate evaluations (and some, as I said, were amazingly accurate), were not necessarily the most experienced in personnel; that is, years on the job. It may be, then, that this skill in making judgment from a first impression is acquired earlier in life, before entering a career in business. Each subject was then given an envelope in which there was “a picture of a person to be evaluated and a few facts from his resume.” Subjects were asked to open the envelopes, read the resume data (a few sentences stating that the person in the photograph “was born in Springfield, Llinois, currently lives in Boston, and is interested in marketing and sales”), and look at the picture for 15 seconds. They then responded to 19 seven-point semantic differential items that served as dependent variable measures of a range of personal characteristics of the stimulus person. The last three items measured were (1) the age of the evaluator, (2) their estimation as to how accurate they had been in their evaluations, and (3) as a check on the manipulation, their guess as to the age of the person in their photograph. After each experimental session, the subjects were asked to discuss the study in which they had just participated. To discover whether they had “seen through” the manipulation, they were asked how accurate they thought they had been in their guesses and whether they thought it was possible to make evaluations onLevin / AGE STEREOTYPING — 139 the basis of so little information. In their verbal responses most said they could not tell how accurate they had been, but only two subjects from the three sessions said that the task was impossible. Analysis of the responses to the evaluation accuracy question revealed a mean estimate of accuracy of 4.96, with 7.0 being the most accurate and 1.0 being the least accurate. In other words, the subjects believed that they could in fact “tell a book by its cover” with some accuracy. In addition, subjects expressed interest in how they had done. They wished to be informed of the results, especially the comparison of their accuracy of evaluation with those of students from the other campuses studied. When told that the true purpose of the study was to look at attitudes toward age, the subjects were consistently surprised. (After the study, the subjects were of course reassured that the results were anonymous and were given a talk on the literature of ageism and the problems and dangers of making such “face” evaluations.) STIMULUS PHOTOGRAPH The key to this study was the acquisition of photographs to serve as stimulus. A photograph from a 1940 college yearbook of a 25-year-old male was found in which the clothes, hairstyle, and photography did not reveal that this was an old picture. The male in the photograph was located and agreed to provide a later photograph of when he was 52 that matched the first photograph for clothing, lighting, head and body position, facial expression, and hairstyle. (This particular man had held some prominent executive positions and had many photographs from which we could choose.) He was then rephotographed at age 73 in the appropriate clothing, lighting, and position to match the first two pictures. All three photographs were then professionally repro- duced to equalize their tone qualities and screening counts. CHECK ON THE MANIPULATION Analysis of the scores for the evaluators’ estimates of the age of their target person provided a check on the effectiveness of the1409 RESEARCH ON AGING manipulation. Results revealed that those in the “young” condi- tion (photograph at age 25) had a mean age estimation of 25.1, those in the “middle-age” condition estimated the age of the photographed person at 49.1, and those in the “old” condition estimated the age at 68.7 (F = 1,294, p <.001). DEPENDENT VARIABLE MEASURES Beliefs about the characteristics of the target person were measured on 19 seven-point semantic differential items ranging, for each characteristic, from 7 for the most positive evaluation to I for the most negative. For example: Competent___:_:__.___:___.__:___Incompetent 7 6 S$ 4 3 2 1 Such semantic differential measures have been used successfully ina number of studies on attitudes toward age (Ross and Freitag, 1976; O’Connell and Rotter, 1979; Decker, 1983). The 19 characteristics measured were the following: (1) _activity—active vs. passive 2) competence—competent vs. incompetent (3) intelligence—high I.Q. vs. low LQ. (4) power—powerful vs. weak (5) health—bealthy vs. sickly (6) security—secure vs. insecure (7) creativity—creative vs. uncreative (8) speed—fast vs. slow (9) attractiveness—attractive vs. ugly (10) pleasantness—pleasant vs. unpleasant (11) reliability—reliable vs. unreliable (12) energy—energetic vs. lazy (13) calm—calm vs. irritable (14) flexibility—flexible vs. rigid (15) education—educated vs. uneducated (16) generosity—generous vs. selfish (17) wealth—wealthy vs. poorLevin / AGESTEREOTYPING 141 (18) memory—good memory vs. poor memory (19) social Involvement—involved vs. socially isolated These characteristics were selected from lists of age stereotypes included in Robert Butler’s (1975, p. 6) summary description of the cultural image of the elderly in America and the National Council on the Aging report of the results of a Louis Harris (1975) survey of American adults, From the extensive lists of character- istics that were available, only those that seemed appropriate for the evaluation of a job candidate were chosen. Results A 3 X 2 analysis of variance (age of stimulus person X sex of subject) was conducted on scores for each of the 19 dependent variable characteristics. The results revealed that, as hypothesized, the older target person was more negatively evaluated for a wide range of characteristics than either the middle-aged or younger person and that this was the case in all three regions of the country in which data were collected. These results occurred among both male and female evaluators.! In the San Francisco sample, the older target was evaluated significantly more negatively on 14 of the 19 characteristics, in the Tennessee sample on 17 of the 19, and in the Massachusetts sample on 15 of the 19. (See Tables 1-3 for summary of results.) On 12 of the dependent variable measures, the older target person was evaluated significantly more negatively by the subjects from all three samples. Of the 19 dependent variable measures, only one characteristic, generosity, failed to produce significant differences by age in any of the three samples. The dependent variable, wealth, produced significant differences by age in only one of the three samples, with the older person evaluated as significantly less wealthy. And five more dependent variables, creativity, flexibility, security, pleasantness, and degree of calm, produced significant differences by age in two of the three samples, In each of these cases, again, the older person was more142 RESEARCH ON AGING TABLE 1 Means and F Scores for Effect of Age of Target on Evaluations for 19 Characteristics (D.V.s), San Francisco Sample (N = 173) Mean Evaluations: (Lower scores indicate more negative evaluations) Dependent Variable Young Middle old Significance Characteristics (N=57) (N=64) (N=52) F-Score (. < 205) Activity 4.74 4.09 3.31 16.91 Competence 5126 5.19 4.29 16.41 Intelligence 5.18 5.27 4:50 6.95 Power 4:72 4.56 4.08 4.26 Health S.61 4.75 3.71 29.38 Security 4175 4186 4.37 2.91 Creativity 4:47 416-3169 4.82 Speed 4.65 4.39 3:17 21.83 Attractiveness 5.04 3.44 2.77 43.94 Pleasantness 4.75 4.55 4.48 262 Reliability 5182 5.36 4.75 3.60 nergy 4:36 3.54 12.84 calm 5.30 4.85 2.84 Flexibility 4.28 3.87 3.75 Education 5.83 5.27 4.52 Generosity 4:34 4.77 1.68 Wealth 4.89 4.75 1.62 Memory 5:16 3:98 14.86 Social 4147 4:19 6.42 Involvement, negatively evaluated as less creative, flexible, secure, pleasant, and calm. MULTIPLE MEANS COMPARISON Since this study employed the evaluation of a person at three different ages, a significant main effect for age merely indicated that at least one age was evaluated significantly differently from one of the others. That is, it is possible that a significant F value was created by the difference in the evaluation of the young and middle-aged person, in which case age stereotyping of older persons would not have been shown. To establish that in eachLevin / AGESTEREOTYPING 143 TABLE 2 Means and F Scores for Effect of Age of Target on Evaluations for 19 Characteristics (D.V.s), East Tennessee State University Sample (N = 151) “Mean Evaluations: (Lower scores indicate more negative evaluations) Dependent variable Young Middle old Significance Characteristics (N=42) (N&52) (N=57) F-Score (Pe < 05) Activity 5.07 3.90 3.57 18.14 sig. Competence 5.17 5.29 4.780 4.14 Sig. Intelligence 5121 §.31 4156 7.16 sig. Power 5.05 4.52 3.83 9.33 sig. Health 5.93 5.19 4.62 41.19 sig. Security 5.28 4.98 4.44 6.07 Sig. Creativity 4.55 3198 3156 5.75 sig. Speed 4:76 4115031297. sig. Attractiveness 5.02 3.65 2.93 33.41 sig. Pleasantness 4198 4167 4119 3.167 sig. Reliability 5.41 5.62 4.88 5.54 sig. Energy 5.19 4.39 3.61 17115 Sig. ‘Calm 5131 5129 4.68 2.49 Flexibility 4:86 4.08 3:72 6.80 Education 5.91 5.81 5.08 Generosity 4145 4154 4126 wealth 5.133 4.81 4.68 Memory 5:43 5.29 4.35 Social 5183 4137 4212 Involvement analysis the older person was judged significantly more negatively than at least one of the other ages, Dunnett’s procedure for comparing treatment means with a control was employed (Winer, 1962). It was found that in every instance in which the age of the “target person” was significant, the evaluation of the older person was significantly more negative than at least one of the other ages and, in most cases, was significantly different from both. Conclusions and Implications These results indicate strong and consistent age stereotypes by college students against a specific male target. He was evaluated144 RESEARCH ON AGING TABLE 3 Means and F Scores for Effect of Age of Target ‘on Evaluations for 19 Characteristics (D.V.s), Salem State College (Massachusetts) Sample ( 163) Mean Evaluations: (Lower scores indicate more negative evaluations) Dependent Variable Young Middle old Significance Characteristics (N-53) (N©55) (N=55) F-Score (PB. < 295) Activity 5.17 4.16 3.80 19.31 sig. Competence 5.42 5.40 4.58 12.90 sig. Intelligence Sill 5.35 4.38 14.68 sig. Power 5115 4138319511143 sig. Health 5.89 5.00 3.95 41.83 sig. Security 5192 5.13 4.583117 sig. Creativity 4:15 4.00 3.86 763 Speed 4.66 4.20 3.51 11.82 Attractiveness 4.93 3.53 3.33 25.56 Pleasantness 4.93 4151 4.06 6.94 Reliability 5.26 5.75 4.86 11.15 Eneroy 510g 414931931121 calm 4.89 4.35 3.06 Flexibility 4115 3191 2.96 Education 5.87 5.26 6.44 Generosity 4149 4751 224 Wealth 4:86 4.93 169 Memory 5:13 4.04 19.82 Social 4:46 3:51 30.13 Involvement in the concrete context of application for ajob and in the absence of comparison with younger applicants. Thus the evaluation procedure was uncontaminated by generalized evaluation of “older people,” noncontextual or unrealistic context evaluation, or invidious comparison with younger people. The present research was designed to deal with some of the methodological problems in measuring age stereotypes, but it has also raised some further ones. For example, care was taken to make the stimulus photographs equivalent on a variety of qualities (even in the age 73 photograph the stimulus target had a full head of hair and no glasses), but there was no way to holdLevin | AGESTEREOTYPING 145 constant the attractiveness of the person in the three conditions. This was because attractiveness is strongly related to age in our culture. Expert judges could not be expected to find the same person equally attractive as a young, middle-aged, and old man. In addition, it was impossible to find three comparison photo- graphs of a female target person. Clothing, hairstyles, and photographic “fuzzing” of females’ portraits made photographs from the 1940s “dated looking.” Consequently, results of this study may not be generalized to females. Lastly, though post- manipulation interviews with the respondents suggested that they had thought it reasonable to evaluate total strangers on the basis of a bit of resume information and photograph, the task was not as realistic as an actual job interview. Though these results seem strong and consistent across samples, there is a need for further data to show whether the same sorts of stereotypes are held toward older females and by subjects of different ages. THE DILEMMA OF STEREOTYPES: VERSUS PROBABILISTIC EVALUATIONS One of the most powerful differences in age evaluations uncovered in this study is that the same man was judged to be much less attractive in later life (to both male and female evaluators) than he was when younger. This scems to provide clear evidence of a negative attitude toward age in our culture. However, what about the attitudes toward age that seem to be based on data about the realities of biological aging? The data supporting the notion of inevitable decline with age are widely accepted in the American culture. Therefore, if a respondent in this study guesses that the energy or health levels of a 70-year-old person are low, is that respondent expressing a negative stereotype of the elderly or merely a probabilistic evaluation for which there is widespread evidence? This issue has already been dealt with in the study of race and gender stereotyping. Some years ago, racist and sexist stereotypes were based on relatively unchallenged, if unsound, biological146 RESEARCH ON AGING evidence (Gould, 1981). Today, such arguments are rare. It is not that there are no data at all that can be cited to support stereotypes, but that the relationship between data and stereo- typing has been made clear. Stereotypes are exaggerations of reality that are applied to entire groups of people. It is virtually unavoidable that there be a kernel of truth on which a stereotype may be based. For example, there are certainly some emotional women, some musical Blacks, and some clannish Jews. What makes for stereotyping is the extension of such characteristics to all members of a given group and to any individual who belongs to the group. In the area of race stereotyping, the evidence that Black Americans score lower than white Americans on standard tests of intelligence does not prevent us from labeling as a stereotype the belief that Blacks are naturally less intelligent than whites. Clearly, there is evidence that qualities such as activity and health do decline over time for some people. But, as every text in social gerontology is careful to point out, the elderly are still the most heterogeneous stratum in the age spectrum. The data presented here, however, affirm that older people continue to be lumped together and negatively evaluated, even on characteristics for which there is no evidence, or poor evidence, for decline. For example, the older person was more negatively evaluated for intelligence though it is increasingly clear from the evidence that intelligence does not decline in everyone or in every area of intelligence with age (Baltes and Labouvie, 1973). Though gerontologists have continued to collect data to the contrary, older Americans are still judged to be of lower competence, activity, intelligence, attractiveness, health, and so on, than their younger counterparts. Senescence may be a fact, but the extent to which it occurs can surely be exaggerated and its effect accelerated by excessive acceptance of its role in later life. In addition, to the extent that the elderly are stereotyped, there will seem to be evidence that justifies denying them opportunities for employment and other varieties of social involvement that contribute vitally to social integration (Butler, 1975; Levin and Levin, 1980; Binstock, 1983).Levin / AGESTEREOTYPING 147 NOTE ._ In the $7 analyses (3 samples with 19 dependent variables each), there were only 4 significant first-order interactions between age of target and sex of evaluator, approxi- mately the number of significant interactions one might expect by chance alone (type I error), REFERENCES Austin, D. R. 1985. “Attitudes Toward Old Age: A Hierarchical Study.” Gerontologist 25:431-434, Baltes, P. and G. Labouvie. 1973. “Adult Development of Intellectual Performance: Description, Explanation and Modification.” In The Psychology of Adult Develop- ‘ment and Aging, edited by C. Eisendorfer and M. Lawton. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 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Osterkamp M. 1979."“The Effect of Deviations from Stereotyped Expectations upon Attitudes Toward Old People.” Journal of Geron- tology 34:368-374. Decker, W. H. 2983. “Stereotypes of Middle-Aged and Elderly Professionals.” Psychology 20:60-67. Gould, S. J. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton. Green, S. K. 1981. “Attitudes and Perceptions About the Elderly: Current and Future Perspectives.” International Journal of Aging and Human Development 13:99-119. Louis Harris and Associates. 1975. The Myth and Reality of Aging in America. New York: National Council on Aging. Karlins, M., T. Coffman, and G. Walters, 1969. “On the Fading of Social Stereotypes: Studies in Threc Generations of College Students.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 13:1-16. Kogan, N. 1979. “Beliefs, Attitudes and Stereotypes About Old People: A New Look at ‘Some Old Issues.” Research on Aging 1:11-36.148 RESEARCH ON AGING Levin, J. and W. C, Levin. 1980, Ageism: Prejudice and Discrimination Against the Elderly, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Levin, J. and W. C. Levin. 1981. “Willingness to Interact with an Old Person.” Research on Aging 3:211-217 McTavish, Donald G. 1971. “Perceptions of Old People: A Review of Research, Methodologies, and Findings.” Gerontologist 11:90-101. O'Connell, A. N. and N. G. Rotter. 1979. “The Influence of Stimulus Age and Sex on Person Perception.” Journal of Gerontology 34:220-228. Puckett J. M.,R.E. Petty, J. T. Cacioppo, and D. L. Fischer. 1983. “The Relative Impact, of Age Attractiveness Stereotypes on Persuasion.” Journal of Gerontology 38:340-343. Ross, R. F. and C. B. Freitag. 1976. “A Comparison of Adolescent and Adult Attitudes Toward the Aged.” Educational Gerontology 1:291-295, Schonfield, D. 1982. “Who Is Stereotyping Whom and Why?” Gerontologist 22:267-272. Sigall, H. and R. Page. 1971. “Current Stereotypes: A Little Fading, a Lite Faking.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 18:247-255, Taylor, D., P, Sheatsley, and A. Greeley. 1978, “Attitudes Toward Racial Integration.” Scientific American 238:42-49. Tibbitts, C. 1979. “Can We Invalidate Negative Stereotypes of Aging?” Gerontologist 19:10-20. Winer, B. J. 1962. Statistical Principles in Experimental Design. New York: MeGraw-Hill Wingard, J. A., R. Heath, and S. A. Himelstein. 1982. “The Effect of Contextual Variations on Attitudes Toward the Elderly.” Journal of Gerontology 37:475-482. William C. Levinis Professor in the Department of Sociology] Anthropology at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He is particularly interested in age prejudice and is currently working on a monograph on the subject of ageism.