Journal of Strategic Marketing

ISSN: 0965-254X (Print) 1466-4488 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjsm20

The impact of age stereotypes on elderly

consumers’ self-efficacy and cognitive
performance

Andrea Groeppel-Klein, Jennifer Helfgen, Anja Spilski & Laura Schreiber

To cite this article: Andrea Groeppel-Klein, Jennifer Helfgen, Anja Spilski & Laura
Schreiber (2017) The impact of age stereotypes on elderly consumers’ self-efficacy
and cognitive performance, Journal of Strategic Marketing, 25:3, 211-225, DOI:
10.1080/0965254X.2017.1299787

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2017.1299787

Published online: 15 Mar 2017.

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 Journal of Strategic Marketing, 2017
VOL. 25, NO. 3, 211–225
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2017.1299787

The impact of age stereotypes on elderly consumers’

self-efficacy and cognitive performance
Andrea Groeppel-Klein, Jennifer Helfgen, Anja Spilski and Laura Schreiber
Institute for Consumer and Behavioral Research, Saarland University, Saarbruecken, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In this article we address the question of whether age stereotypes Received 11 March 2016
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impact cognitive performance in a consumer behavioral context. We Accepted 4 November 2016

assume that in consumer decision-making contexts, the elderly are
KEYWORDS
affected by negative (vs. positive) age stereotypes, leading to less self- Age stereotypes; self-
efficacy and thus a decrease in cognitive performance. We extend prior stereotyping; contamination
research by also asking whether perceived time pressure can reinforce hypothesis; self-efficacy;
the effects of age stereotypes on the elderly’s self-efficacy, which can cognitive performance
in turn influence cognitive performance. The results of our experiment
reveal that priming with negative (vs. positive) stereotypes leads to
decreased cognitive performance among the elderly. This relationship
is mediated by self-efficacy. Furthermore, self-perception of aging
serves as a mediator for the effect of self-efficacy and cognitive
performance. The effect of self-efficacy on cognitive performance is
reinforced when consumers feel that they are under time pressure.
The results of our investigation have important implications for the
marketing of products or services to elderly consumers.

Introduction
The aging of the population will have a fundamental impact on the economy and culture
of many countries over the coming decades. According to the OECD (2013), the proportion
of people aged 65 or over worldwide will rise from its current level of 15–27% by as early as
2050, meaning that about one quarter of the population will be over 65 by that date. In
many Western countries, the figure will be as high as one in three. Yet, consumer behavior
research is just beginning to investigate the needs and wants of the elderly (e.g. Laurent,
Pieters, & Yoon, 2014).
In this article we address the question of whether age stereotypes impact cognitive per-
formance in a consumer behavioral context. The term ‘age stereotypes’ refers to people’s
ideas (conscious or unconscious), judgments, and images of aging and the elderly (Bennett
& Gaines, 2010). This can include, for example, ‘stereotypes about older individuals having
bad cognitive function (e.g., they are senile)’ or ‘good cognitive function (e.g., they are wise)’
(Levy & Leifheit-Limson, 2009, p. 230). As personalized or generalized (i.e. stereotypical) expec-
tations, these positive or negative images can influence both how older people perceive

CONTACT  Andrea Groeppel-Klein  groeppel-klein@ikv.uni-saarland.de

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 212   A. GROEPPEL-KLEIN ET AL.

themselves and how they are perceived by others. Self-stereotyping is an important topic
in gerontological studies (e.g. Levy, 1996; Levy, Zonderman, Slade, & Ferrucci, 2012): The
general belief is that individuals have ideas about the typical behavior of specific groups (e.g.
the elderly). If they feel that they also belong to this group, they behave – unconsciously – in
exactly the way they expect this group to behave. In the present research, we address the
role of age stereotypes and self-perceptions of aging on older consumers’ cognitive
performance.
Broadly speaking, two different perspectives of aging exist in the world of marketing: a
negative view and a positive view. These two views correspond to the negative and positive
gerontological views. Marketing experts either believe that older consumers do not like
spending money, reject innovative products, have problems with complicated products,
lack enthusiasm, and find it hard to find their way around hypermarkets – in other words,
they are not competent, flexible or attractive. Or they believe that the elderly like consuming,
have a high income and purchasing power, and are highly competent (Gröppel-Klein, 2010).
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This latter view leads to the prediction that ‘companies have a golden opportunity to appeal
to the silver generation’ (Palmquist, 2015; Kohlbacher, Herstatt, & Levsen, 2015).
In research into consumer behavior we also find differing perspectives. First, a negative
perspective: Several studies of consumer behavior argue that the ability to process informa-
tion is significantly weaker in older people than in younger people, owing to an assumed
decrease in the activity of working memory (e.g. Lambert-Pandraud & Laurent, 2010;
Lambert-Pandraud, Laurent, & Lapersonne, 2005). These studies argue that older consumers
do not compare different options, are unable to recognize the advantages of specific offers,
have ‘nostalgic loyalty,’ or that they may lack advice due to their social isolation (e.g. East,
Uncles, & Lomax, 2014). For example, it is argued that older consumers consider fewer dealers
or brands – and often just a single dealer or brand – when buying a new car (Lambert-
Pandraud et al., 2005). Lambert-Pandraud et al. (2005) discuss four different mechanisms
that can help explain these findings: Biological aging and the accompanying increase in
physical impairment; cognitive decline in working memory and explicit memory; socioemo-
tional selectivity and its influence on the prioritization of emotions and feelings over new
information; and aversion to change due to risk avoidance. Lambert-Pandraud et al. (2005)
state that cognitive decline is a tentative but promising explanation for their results and call
for more research in this field. In our study we respond to this call for more research into the
cognitive misperformance of the elderly. We focus on the question of whether cognitive
performance is influenced by negative (vs. positive) age stereotypes that hinder (vs. enhance)
consumers to realize their full potential cognitive ability.
Our study does not deal with socioemotional selectivity theory (SST). The SST, in its initial
form, concentrates on the composition of interpersonal relationships (Carstensen, 1992) and
describes emotional regulation as a consequence of the limited time horizon that people
have when they grow old (e.g. Carstensen, Fung, & Charles, 2003). The SST has been success-
fully applied in marketing contexts, such as emotional advertisement (Williams & Drolet,
2005) or brand attachment (Jahn, Gaus, & Kiessling, 2012). However, it is only of minor interest
to our study – for two reasons, discussed below.
In the first place, the SST is often used to explain differences between young and old
adults (Kuppelwieser & Sarstedt, 2014). In our study, however, we only focus on elderly people
(>59 years). We do not make any comparisons between young and old adults. Rather, we
 JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC MARKETING   213

investigate within a group of elderly people whether cognitive performance can be influ-
enced by priming age stereotypes.
In the second place, Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, and Nesselroade (2000) demonstrate
that elderly people experience as many positive emotions and fewer negative emotions
than younger people in their everyday life, just as is assumed in the SST. However, the decline
of negative emotions (i.e. the negative correlation between chronological age and frequency
of negative emotions) ceases at approximately age 60. Indeed, from 60 onwards, a small
increase in the frequency of negative emotions can be detected (Carstensen et al., 2000).
Our research deals with people aged 59–80, for whom emotional regulation, which lies at
the heart of the SST, appears either to be no longer present or only of minor importance
(because within the old age group no differences are expected). Nevertheless, since working
memory may deteriorate with age (e.g. Mikels, Larkin, Reuter-Lorenz, & Carstensen, 2005;
Reuter-Lorenz & Sylvester, 2005), chronological age should be considered as a control vari-
able when investigating how the elderly’s cognitive performance is diminished or aug-
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mented by age stereotypes. For our group of elderly people, we try to answer the question
of whether negative age stereotypes contribute to the further deterioration of working
memory. In this we follow Levy (e.g. Levy, 2003), and examine whether her findings regarding
the influence of age stereotypes also apply to typical consumer decisions. This has not pre-
viously been investigated, as far as we are aware.
Beside the negative perspective on aging in marketing mentioned above, also a positive
perspective of aging can be found in the literature. Knowledge gained through experience
can compensate for a slower working memory. Experiments by Kirmani and Campbell (2004)
demonstrate that older consumers have better ‘persuasion knowledge’ than their younger
counterparts. Healey and Hasher (2009) conclude that, for many consumer decisions, either
the necessary cognitive processes (e.g. comparing alternatives, weighting decision criteria)
are age-invariant, or the aforementioned experience-based knowledge can compensate for
gaps in processing specific information. Their study finds no differences between younger
and older consumers in making good decisions. Likewise, Lambert-Pandraud and Laurent
(2010, p. 104) state that ‘at all ages, some consumers frequently change their preferred brand,’
indicating that old consumers, too, can be innovators.
Our research goal is to explain these mixed results from an older consumer’s perspective.
Our assumption is that age stereotypes play an important role in explaining the consumer
behavior of elderly people. Gerontological studies have considered whether age stereotypes
can be ‘incorporated into the self’ over the lifespan of an individual (Kornadt & Rothermund,
2012; Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003) and whether age stereotypes influence the elder-
ly’s cognitive performance (Hess & Hinson, 2006; Hess, Hinson, & Statham, 2004; Horton,
Baker, Pearce, & Deakin, 2008). In this article, we combine these questions. We address the
issue of whether age stereotypes affect decision-making performance, and whether external
age stereotypes are incorporated into the self-perception of aging and how this influences
the elderly’s cognitive performance.
This paper extends prior research in multiple ways. First, while most of the cited studies
use numeracy, memory, or walking as dependent variables to measure the performance of
the elderly (e.g. Levy, 2003; Levy et al., 2012), we first transfer the findings to a typical con-
sumer context. Negative age stereotypes have also been used by advertisers, especially in
the context of charities, to evoke pity (Small & Verrochi, 2009). Here, the usage of a negative
age image, such as pointing to the loneliness or suffering of elderly people, serves a good
 214   A. GROEPPEL-KLEIN ET AL.

cause: It encourages people to donate money. These advertisements are thus designed to
help elderly people and not to harm them. What is more, they are normally addressed to
younger generations, not to the elderly – the group we are concerned with. Existing studies
on age stereotypes in consumer research often focus on content analyses (e.g. in advertising,
Kay & Furnham, 2013). We, by contrast, use an experimental design and argue that external
age stereotypes are also influencing factors that can change a consumer’s ability to estimate
the quality of products and offers. In our empirical study, participants had to solve a typical
problem in a consumer-decision context. We analyze whether the ability of older persons
to correctly access the value-for-money ratio of typical service offers might be influenced
by being confronted with a negative (vs. a positive) age stereotype.
Second, we consider reasons for the effects of age stereotypes on cognitive performance.
According to Levy (1996), self-efficacy is an important mediator in explaining the relationship
between age stereotypes and cognitive performance. However, self-efficacy also has been
considered in gerontological studies beyond the consumer context (e.g. Levy, 1996; Levy,
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Hausdorff, Hencke, & Wei, 2000) and in consumption-related situations that do not consider
the elderly (e.g. Park & John, 2014). Our study is the first, to our knowledge, to consider the
self-efficacy of the elderly in a consumption context. We assume that in consumer deci-
sion-making contexts, the elderly are affected by negative (vs. positive) age stereotypes,
leading to less self-efficacy and thus a decrease in cognitive performance. By priming either
positive or negative age stereotypes, we aim to find out if and how self-image and perfor-
mance are affected. According to Wentura, Kulfanek, and Greve (2005), self-esteem can be
changed by stimuli presented only for a short time.
Third, we make a theoretical contribution by combining external age stereotypes, self-
efficacy, and the self-perception of aging. We argue that self-efficacy that is affected by
external age stereotypes may not only lead to a worse performance but also provoke older
adults to change their personal age stereotype. This might be an additional way of instilling
or infusing negative information into the self (Rothermund, 2005; Rothermund &
Brandtstädter, 2003). We therefore integrate this additional path of reasoning in our
theoretical and empirical model.
Finally, we consider moderating effects. Time pressure has an important impact in deci-
sion-making contexts (Yoon, Cole, & Lee, 2009) and influences consumers’ performance. Our
study extends prior research by asking whether perceived time pressure can reinforce the
effects of age stereotypes on the elderly’s self-efficacy, which can in turn influence cognitive
performance.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows. First, we give an overview of the
different hypotheses in the literature about the relationship between external and internal
age perceptions. We then turn to the concept of ‘self-efficacy’ as a mediating variable, and
‘time pressure’ as a moderating variable, and present our own hypotheses. Our experimental
study tests these hypotheses. Finally, we discuss the results of our study and their
implications.

Review of literature
When people are young, they normally generate external perceptions of aging (or age ste-
reotypes) only through their personal contact with older people, such as their grandparents,
or through the media. Hummert, Garstka, Shaner, and Strahm (1994) identified fourteen age
 JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC MARKETING   215

stereotypes that are either positively or negatively connotated. Miller, Leyell, and Mazachek
(2004) examined the role of these stereotypes in marketing, demonstrating that some of
them can also be found in advertising – for example, positive age stereotypes such as the
‘perfect grandparent’ or negative age stereotypes such as the ‘despondent’ or ‘mildly
impaired’ elderly person.
As people grow older, they increasingly generate self-stereotypes of aging, which then
coexist with the external stereotypes. External stereotypes of aging can be individual or
collective in nature, manifesting themselves in personal interactions with older people,
institutional regulations, and the way older consumers are treated by companies with regard
to advertising, products, or services. External stereotypes of aging refer to perceptions of
other older people (‘How do I or other people view other elderly people?’); internal stereotypes
(or self-stereotypes) refer to the perceptions of the person’s own life as an older person (‘How
do I experience my own aging?’ or ‘Aging means to me that …’, Steverink, Westerhof, Bode,
& Dittmann-Kohli, 2001). As already pointed out, according to Bennett and Gaines (2010,
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p. 444f ) stereotypes about aging and the old ‘can be either negative or positive,’ ‘have
significant power, particularly if they are self-relevant,’ and ‘operate without awareness and
influence physical and cognitive outcomes.’
The dynamic interaction between ‘external stereotypes’ and ‘self-perception’ is interesting
(Wurm, Tesch-Römer, & Tomasik, 2007), because it can explain why age stereotypes ‘act as
self-fulfilling prophecies’ (Levy & Leifheit-Limson, 2009, p. 230). The literature discusses three
hypotheses on the relationship between external perception and self-perception
(Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003). First, the ‘externalization hypothesis’ argues that ‘indi-
vidually held age stereotypes are a projection of elderly persons’ self-views’ (Rothermund &
Brandtstädter, 2003, p. 549). If these self-experiences are positive in nature (‘My experience
is that I am as successful as younger people’), the external age stereotypes also improve,
which can in turn reinforce consumers’ skills and impact self-perception again (Rothermund
& Brandtstädter, 2003).
The second hypothesis, the ‘comparison hypothesis,’ argues that a separation occurs
between self-perception and external perception: Other people grow old, while I stay the
same age – the typical ‘high-school reunion effect.’ In other words, your own process of aging
is different from that of ‘other old people’ (Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003).
The third hypothesis – and the most relevant for the present paper – is the ‘contamination
hypothesis’ (Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003). This is also known as the ‘internalization
hypothesis’ (Bennett & Gaines, 2010). The contamination hypothesis argues that external
age stereotypes exert an influence on the self-perception of elderly people (Rothermund &
Brandtstädter, 2003). Contamination means that people who develop a strongly negative
external perception of aging run the risk of precisely this fate befalling them later in life.
Driving this self-fulfilling prophecy is the individual’s lack of awareness about health issues,
an unwillingness to continue learning, and a sort of fatalistic approach to life – the belief
that life is not really worth living after a certain age. This fatalism leads to low self-esteem
or stops the individual taking appropriate preventive action early on.
To summarize, according to the contamination hypothesis, self-views become increasingly
contaminated with negative associations that have been acquired earlier in life (Rothermund,
2005). However, contamination may also be elicited via simple confrontation with age ste-
reotypes. Research by Levy (2003) demonstrates that even subliminally priming with neg-
ative age stereotypes (participants were subliminally exposed to negative age stereotype
 216   A. GROEPPEL-KLEIN ET AL.

words, such as ‘decrepit,’ on a computer screen in order to activate negative age stereotypes)
reduces cognitive performance with respect to handwriting, walking, and memory, as well
as the will to live.
In the present paper, then, we focus on priming age stereotypes in a consumer behavioral
context and analyze its impact on elderly consumers’ cognitive performance. ‘Priming refers
to the incidental activation of knowledge structures, such as trait concepts and stereotypes,
by the current situational context’ (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996, p. 230). This activation
exerts an ‘unintended, passive influence on the interpretation of behavior’ or on behavioral
responses (Bargh et al., 1996, p. 230). In our study we prime age stereotypes by showing
advertisements displaying characteristic negative or positive age images, and we assume
that this exerts an influence on consumer’s ability to perform cognitive tasks.

Research hypotheses
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As discussed above, research has revealed that when elderly people are shown negative age
stereotypes they subsequently have a slower gait and poorer memory performance (e.g.
Hess et al., 2004; Levy, 2003). Hess and Hinson (2006) find that after being primed with
negative age stereotypes, participants also report a subjectively perceived decrease in cog-
nitive performance. In addition, Horton et al. (2008) substantiate, through their meta-analysis,
the priming effect of negative (vs. positive) age stereotypes on cognitive performance with
respect to memory tasks. There thus appears to be a robust relationship between negative
age primes and cognitive performance. However, as far as we are aware, no studies to date
have looked at whether this relationship between the priming of age stereotypes and cog-
nitive performance is also relevant in a consumer decision-making context, or whether older
consumers’ decision-making capabilities are invariant to any age primes.
On the question of what alters cognitive performance, some researchers have also pro-
posed the concept of self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1981, p. 200f ), ‘self-efficacy is
concerned with judgments about how well one can organize and execute courses of action
required to deal with prospective situations.’ Bandura also stresses that perceived self-efficacy
can impact performance success. Therefore, self-efficacy may play a key role in human func-
tioning with respect to performance and life expectations. It is seen as a dynamic construct,
that is, it can change when new information is acquired during task performance (Park &
John, 2014). Bandura (2006) stresses that self-efficacy should not be seen as representing a
global trait (‘I am smart’), but is better conceptualized as related to a specific task (‘I can do
well on this test’; see Park & John, 2014, p. 234).
In the context of the performance of elderly people, Levy (1996) considers self-efficacy
an important mediator in explaining the relationship between age stereotypes and cognitive
performance. Levy et al. (2000) show that negative age stereotypes can hinder self-efficacy.
They call for self-efficacy to be considered a mediator in further studies. With respect to the
contamination hypothesis, discussed further above, ‘contamination’ could also mean that
exposure to negative stereotypes can result in elderly consumers having lower self-esteem
(Rothermund, 2005) and having no confidence in their performance.
In this paper, with reference to the contamination hypothesis, we assume that priming
older consumers with a negative (vs. positive) age stereotype will diminish their perceived
self-efficacy and lead to poorer performance in a typical consumer context. We express this
as follows:
 JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC MARKETING   217

H1: The impact of a negative (vs. positive) age stereotype on elderly consumers’ cognitive per-
formance is mediated by their self-efficacy.
Additionally, studies show that negative age stereotypes exert an influence on self-
perception, demonstrating that a relationship exists between ‘external’ age stereotypes and
‘internal’ self-views (Eibach, Mock, & Courtney, 2010; Kotter-Grühn & Hess, 2012). As discussed
further above, older adults tend to integrate the stereotypical information into their self-
evaluation, and we can observe the ‘contamination’ or ‘internalization’ effect (Rothermund,
2005; Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003). This chain of reasoning is also known as ‘labeling
theory’ (Kotter-Grühn & Hess, 2012). Labeling theory states that self-perception or self-
identity, as well as the behavior of individuals belonging to a specific group, may be
determined by the labels other members in society use to classify this group.
Levy (1996) argues that self-efficacy may also play a role in this internalization process.
Similarly, Bandura (1981) suggests that impaired perceived self-efficacy can lead to self-
evaluative concerns and negative self-appraisals. In this way, impaired self-efficacy may not
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only lead to worse performance but, in turn, may also provoke older adults to change (i.e. to
corrupt) their self-perception of aging. This might be an additional way of instilling or infusing
negative information into the self (Rothermund, 2005; Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003).
Additionally, we assume that this largely unconscious internalization of the negative
views of others into the self leads to self-fulfilling prophecies, more specifically diminished
cognitive performance. Previous studies show that a self-perception of aging impacts in
later life on physical performance (e.g. Sargent-Cox, Anstey, & Luszcz, 2012) and health (e.g.
Wurm et al., 2007). A meta-analysis (Westerhof et al., 2014) confirms the effects of subjective
aging on the health and longevity of older adults. In a similar vein, we expect a self-percep-
tion of aging to influence cognitive performance. If older consumers think about aging in a
negative way, this negative perception of aging will manifest itself in worse cognitive per-
formance; in other words, it will act as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This leads to our second hypothesis, which has two parts:
H2a: The impact of a negative (vs. positive) age stereotype on elderly consumers’ self-perception
of aging is mediated by self-efficacy.

H2b: A negative self-perception of aging has, in turn, a negative impact on elderly consumers’
cognitive performance.
Figure 1 summarizes hypotheses H1, H2a, and H2b.

Figure 1. Illustration of hypotheses H1, H2a, and H2b.

 218   A. GROEPPEL-KLEIN ET AL.

Figure 2. Illustration of hypothesis H3.

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Yoon et al. (2009) point out that perceived time pressure can play a critical role in reducing
cognitive performance in older people and should thus be controlled for when investigating
cognitive performance. Earles, Kersten, Mas, and Miccio (2004, Experiment 3) compared the
performance of undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 22 with that of older
adults between the ages of 62 and 87. Younger and older adults did not differ with respect
to self-reported health ratings. Cognitive performance as a dependent variable was meas-
ured in a recall task. The authors found that an increase in perceived time pressure during
the performance of cognitive tasks decreased the ability of older adults to recall the tasks.
Earles et al. (2004, p. 285) suggest that during time-pressured cognitive tasks, ‘older adults
may become anxious about their performance, and they may have trouble inhibiting neg-
ative self-evaluative thoughts about their performance.’ In this study, we build on this sug-
gestion and argue that consumers’ anxiety about their performance can be interpreted in
terms of self-efficacy. We extend Earles et al.’s (2004) research by hypothesizing that the
effect of external age stereotypes on cognitive performance via self-efficacy is reinforced
when consumers feel they are under time pressure (vs. no time pressure). Thus, our third
hypothesis is as follows:
H3: The perception of time pressure (vs. no time pressure) will increase the effect of priming with
a negative (vs. positive) age stereotype on self-efficacy that in turn influences older consumers’
cognitive performance.
Hypothesis H3 is illustrated in Figure 2.

Experimental study
Sample
A total of N = 122 elderly consumers aged between 59 and 80 (Mage = 67.82, SDage = 4.87,
51% female) served as participants. They were recruited using a snowball system, and were
visited and surveyed in their home environment.
 JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC MARKETING   219

Design and procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions of a 2 (age
stereotype: positive vs. negative) × 2 (time pressure: absent vs. present) between-subjects
design. Both experimental factors were manipulated. The groups did not differ in terms of
chronological age, p > .600, and gender, p > .800.
Participants were asked to solve a task that measured their cognitive performance (see
below: Measurement). The task involved evaluating the value for money of different apart-
ments. Participants were given a booklet that contained the stimuli for the task and were
asked to rank different apartment offers with respect to their value for money. The experi-
mental conditions were induced in the context of this task.
To prime age stereotypes, participants were exposed to one of two modified versions of
an actual advertisement by a charitable organization. In a similar manner to Levy (e.g. Levy,
2003), we activated the age stereotypes by showing the participants a negative or positive
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image of old age. However, unlike Levy, we did not use subliminally presented words but
instead exposed our participants to an advertisement on the back page of the realtor’s
booklet. Our intention was to give the participants the impression that the advertisement
just happened to be on the back of the booklet. None of the participants said that they
realized that this was a priming procedure.
The design for the advertisement was inspired by a real ad for a charity organization. We
then manipulated the ads in line with our research questions. The positive prime showed
four elderly people with friendly faces and the slogan ‘Who knows more about joy and
happiness than 91-year-olds? Talk to an old person. It’s worth it.’ The negative prime showed
four elderly people with sad faces and the slogan ‘Who knows more about loneliness and
suffering than 91-year-olds? Talk to an old person. It’s worth it.’
We conducted a pretest with n = 34 older participants, asking them to write down the
first thought that came into their mind when they saw one of the two ads. These reactions
were coded for representing positive, negative, or neutral aspects of the ads (neutral would
be a simple description of the picture). The results of the pretest showed that the positive
priming condition clearly led to positive associations of aging, and the negative priming to
negative associations.
Half of the sample was presented with the negative age stereotype, and half with the
positive age stereotype. To ensure that participants were exposed to the primes for a com-
parable length of time, we used the back page of the realtor’s booklet (left-hand side, next
to the name and logo of the real estate company). The booklet itself contained the cognitive
performance task. We created two versions of the booklet, one with the positive age stere-
otype on the back and one with the negative age stereotype.
To manipulate the subjectively perceived time pressure, half of the participants were told
that they had as much time as they wanted to solve the task, while the other half were asked
to solve the cognitive performance task within 170 s. A second pretest with n = 23 older
participants showed that the task could easily be completed within the 170 s. However, our
intention was to provoke a subjective perception of time pressure on the part of the partic-
ipants. Accordingly, from the moment they began the task, the group of participants who
were asked to solve the task within 170 s was shown a stopwatch counting down the seconds
(an analogous procedure to that used by Earles et al., 2004). A manipulation check (two
items: ‘While ranking the offers I felt strongly that I was under time pressure’ and ‘The time
 220   A. GROEPPEL-KLEIN ET AL.

to solve the task was not sufficient for me,’ Cronbach’s α = .745) confirmed that we success-
fully created a subjective perception of time pressure: Participants who were asked to solve
the task within 170 s felt significantly more under time pressure than the group with no time
limit (F(1, 118) = 45.253, p < .001).

Measurement
Cognitive performance
The booklet that participants were shown contained four advertisements for rental apart-
ments. A pretest confirmed that the photographs of the four apartments in the offers did
not differ significantly in terms of their visual attractiveness (p > .300). The price of all four
apartments, and their size, was also identical. However, the accompanying text in the ads
presented details about the apartments (e.g. about the bathroom facilities, location of the
apartment, cost of underground parking, and such like) that differed from ad to ad. On this
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basis, it was possible to rank the four offers clearly in terms of their value for money.
Participants were asked to rank the four offers. The dependent variable ‘cognitive perfor-
mance’ was generated by comparing the ranks indicated by the participants with the opti-
mum (i.e. correct) ranks for each of the four apartments. We generated a variable with five
points, ranging from 0 (=no offer correctly classified) to 4 (=all offers correctly classified). The
mean performance of participants was Mcogn.performance = 2.80 (SD = 1.42).

Self-efficacy
Following an approach found in the literature (e.g. Bandura, 2006; Park & John, 2014), we
used a task-specific measure of self-efficacy. Participants rated how confident they felt during
the task on a seven-point scale. We used similar items to Park and John (2014), adapting
them for our study. Examples included ‘I was confident that I would do the ranking correctly,’
and ‘I was confident that I would perform well.’ Items were averaged to create an index of
self-efficacy (Cronbach’s α = .840).

Negative self-perception of aging

We used a set of eight items mirroring facets of negative age perception, namely aspects of
physical discomfort and decreased social contacts that could occur in the life of the elderly
(Steverink et al., 2001). All items expressed negative aspects, with higher values indicating
a more negative perception of age. Examples included ‘To me, aging means my health declin-
ing,’‘To me, aging means that I have less physical endurance,’‘To me, aging means that others
don’t need me so much anymore,’ and ‘To me, aging means that I feel lonely more often.’
Participants were asked to indicate their agreement with the items on a seven-point scale.
We conducted a principal component analysis that revealed a one-dimensional solution
(one Eigenvalue > 1). We therefore averaged the items to create an index of negative self-per-
ception of aging (Cronbach’s α = .906).

Controls
Chronological age was considered as a control variable, as discussed further above. We found
a significant correlation between chronological age and cognitive performance (r = −.232,
p < .05), self-efficacy (r = −.273, p < .01), and between chronological age and negative
self-perception of aging (r = .286, p < .01). We also found a significant correlation between
 JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC MARKETING   221

Figure 3. Results of mediation hypotheses.

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consumers’ prior experiences with apartment hunting (two items measuring the number of
prior experiences renting an apartment for themselves or others, and subjectively perceived
level of experience, Cronbach’s α = .749) and cognitive performance (r = .405, p < .001), self-ef-
ficacy (r = .340, p < .001), and negative self-perception of aging (r = −.438, p < .001). We
therefore controlled for chronological age and prior experience with apartment hunting as
covariates in the analyses.

Results
We structure our discussion of results as follows. First, we present a serial mediation model
that included the paths assumed with H1, H2a, and H2b. We then include the moderator –
time pressure – to test the assumptions made by H3.

Serial mediation model

To test whether the relationship between age stereotypes and cognitive performance is
mediated by self-efficacy (H1) and whether self-efficacy also has an impact on the self-
perception of aging, which in turn influences cognitive performance (H2), we conducted a
serial mediation analysis employing the PROCESS macro for SPSS provided by Hayes (2013).
We conducted bootstrapping with 5000 bootstrapped samples to test for significance of
the indirect effects.
The results reveal that priming with a negative (vs. positive) age stereotype has a signifi-
cant negative effect on consumers’ self-efficacy (b = −.780, t = −4.887, p < .001). This indicates
that consumers have lower self-efficacy in the negative age stereotype condition (coded as
1) than in the positive one (coded as 0). A higher self-efficacy, in turn, has a positive impact
on cognitive performance (b = .334, t = 2.648, p < .01). The indirect effect is statistically dif-
ferent from zero, as evidenced by a 95% bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval, not
including zero (b = −.261, CI [−.543; −.052]). These results support hypothesis H1. The direct
effect of age stereotype priming on cognitive performance is not significant (p > .400), indi-
cating a full mediation (Zhao, Lynch, & Chen, 2010).
We also found a significant impact of self-efficacy on consumers’ self-perception of aging
(b = −.318, t = −3.049, p < .01), indicating that a lower self-efficacy leads to a more pro-
nounced negative self-perception of aging. Negative self-perception of aging itself has a
 222   A. GROEPPEL-KLEIN ET AL.

significant negative effect on cognitive performance (b = −.409, t = −3.812, p < .001). The

indirect effect assumed by H2 (age stereotype → self-efficacy → negative self-perception of
aging → cognitive performance) is statistically different from zero, as evidenced by a 95%
bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval excluding zero (b = −.102, CI [−.252; −.026]).
However, the path from priming with external age stereotypes to the self-perception of
aging was found to be insignificant (p > .600). This indicates that a succession of psychological
processes takes place: Priming with a negative age stereotype first decreases self-efficacy,
which itself directly influences cognitive performance (support for H1) via negative self-
perception of aging (support for H2). As stated above, self-efficacy serves as an important
mediator of the relationship between external (=prime) and internal perceptions (Figure 3).

Moderated mediation
To test whether subjective time pressure increases the negative effect of priming with age
stereotypes on cognitive performance via self-efficacy, we included the moderator ‘time
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pressure’ in the mediation analysis in PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). Age stereotype and time pres-
sure as variables were mean centered prior to analysis. Again, we found a significant main
effect of age stereotype primes (b = −.776, t = −5.042, p < .001). Additionally, in support of
H3, we found a significant interaction effect of age stereotype primes and time pressure
manipulation on self-efficacy (b = −.715, t = −2.308, p < .05). To test for mediation, we again
conducted bootstrapping with 5000 bootstrapped samples. In support of H3, a comparison
of the two conditional indirect effects showed that when consumers perceive time pressure,
the effect of the negative stereotype on cognitive performance via self-efficacy is increased
(btimepressure_absent = −.167, CI [−.439; −.020]; btimepressure = −.452, CI [−.860; −.160]).

Discussion
Our experiment extends the work of previous investigators on the effects of age stereotypes.
In accordance with the contamination hypothesis found in earlier studies of aging (Bennett
& Gaines, 2010; Rothermund & Brandtstädter, 2003), we analyze the impact of negative (vs.
positive) age stereotypes on elderly consumers’ self-efficacy and cognitive performance in
a typical consumer context. With respect to the independent variable, as the stimuli to prime
external age stereotypes we used variations on a real advertisement with typical media
presentations of age stereotypes. With respect to the dependent variable, while previous
studies use numeracy, memory, or walking as dependent variables to measure performance,
our study measured older consumers’ performance in evaluating the value for money of
rental apartments.
Our results show that priming with negative (vs. positive) stereotypes leads to decreased
cognitive performance among the elderly. This relationship is mediated by self-efficacy.
Furthermore, self-perception of aging serves as a mediator of the effect of self-efficacy and
cognitive performance. The impact of self-efficacy on cognitive performance is reinforced
when consumers perceive time pressure.
The results of our investigation have important implications for the marketing of products
or services to elderly consumers. The use of negative age stereotypes in advertisements can
lead to self-fulfilling prophecies that might be unintended by the marketer. For instance,
when a charitable organization uses negative age stereotypes to induce sympathy for elderly
people, this good intention could backfire by making the elderly feel even worse about
 JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC MARKETING   223

themselves and by impacting their cognitive performance negatively. The prevalence of

negative age stereotypes in the media can have a similar effect. Applying – perhaps uncon-
sciously – negative age stereotypes in sales conversations can also harm older consumers.
Marketing and media experts, as well as sales personnel, should be made aware of the effect
that exposure to negative age stereotypes can have on elderly consumers.
As with every experimental study, our study has its limitations. These limitations should
be addressed in future research. One of the study’s limitations is that the stimuli could be
confounded with (positive or negative) affect, as we primed participants with images of
elderly people with either friendly or sad faces. Affect on its own may have an impact on the
cognitive performance (Garbarino & Edell, 1997) of elderly consumers, so further studies are
needed to rule out this alternative explanation, using stimuli as primes that, if possible, do
not include affect (e.g. using verbal stimuli). Future research should also address the analysis
of further marketing-related variables. In our study, we focused on evaluations of value for
money by elderly consumers. Further variables could include the performance and search
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strategies of the elderly in stores, or memory processes such as source monitoring in con-
sumption contexts.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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