Internalization or Dissociation? Negative Age Stereotypes Make You Feel Younger Now But Make You Feel Older Later

Anna E Kornadt, David Weiss, Maria Clara de Paula Couto and Klaus Rothermund

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2023, vol. 78, issue 8, 1341-1348

Abstract: ObjectivesNegative age stereotypes have negative, assimilative effects on the subjective aging experience due to internalization processes, but sometimes positive contrast effects are reported as well, reflecting dissociation and downward comparisons. Our aim was thus to compare short-term and long-term consequences of age stereotypes on the subjective aging experience, to test the hypothesis that contrast effects are visible cross-sectionally, whereas internalization processes are observed when considering long-term changes.MethodsWe assessed age stereotypes and subjective age in a core sample of N = 459 participants (initial age range 30–80 years) from the Ageing as Future project across 3 consecutive measurement occasions spanning a longitudinal interval of 10 years. Short-term and long-term effects were estimated with latent growth models by assessing the effects of age stereotypes on the intercepts (cross-sectional) and on the slopes (longitudinal) of subjective age, respectively, while controlling for current self-views.ResultsAge stereotypes had opposite effects on subjective age depending on the time frame. A cross-sectional contrast effect was found, whereas longitudinal effects were assimilative in nature.DiscussionOur findings support the time-dependent nature of the effects of age stereotypes on the subjective aging experience. Negative age stereotypes temporarily lead to a significantly younger subjective age, indicating dissociation from one’s age group and downward comparison. In the long run, however, negative (positive) age stereotypes become internalized into the self-views of older people and are linked to a relatively older (younger) subjective age.

Keywords: Age stereotypes; Aging self; Dissociation; Internalization; Subjective age (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbad057 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:78:y:2023:i:8:p:1341-1348.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().