MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-02-01 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Agism in the workplace
|
https://www.wsj.com/articles/worried-about-ageism-where-you-live-matters-11612198542?mod=hp_featst_pos3
wsj.com
Worried About Ageism? Where You Live Matters
Clare Ansberry
6-8 minutes
Are you biased against older people? It may depend, in part, on where
you live.
A recent study of data collected from all 50 states found that implicit
bias—a subconscious negative attitude—against older people was most
prevalent in the country’s southeastern and northeastern states,
including New Jersey, the Carolinas and Florida. The findings were based
on responses of 803,000 people ages 15 to 94 who completed a test
involving photos of young and old people and words associated with those
images.
A second part of the study overlaid age-bias results with each state’s
health data, looking at things like diet, smoking and obesity. Those
states that ranked high in implicit age bias had a larger percentage of
adults with poor health and higher per capita Medicare spending.
“When considering what it is like to grow old in the United States,
where people live matters,” writes Hannah Giasson, a research fellow at
Stanford University and lead author of the study, which was published in
July in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
Researchers didn’t determine why certain states showed more bias. One
theory is that in states with a large population of retirees, there may
be more tension between young and old over how government dollars are
spent on things like housing, medical facilities and support networks,
says William Chopik, an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan
State University and one of the authors of the study. Popular retirement
destinations also often have specific and separate neighborhoods, which
may not encourage positive interactions between younger and older
people, allowing stereotypes to linger, says co-author Dr. Giasson.
Understanding attitudes toward older adults is especially important
during the pandemic, since ageism could affect how elders are treated. A
study published in November found that survey respondents, who were more
hostile toward older people and considered them to be a drain on the
economy and health-care system, washed their hands less frequently and
didn’t believe in social distancing.
“The attitude is: ‘I don’t care. I’m not going to change. It’s an older
person’s problem,’ ” says Michael Vale, a graduate student at the
University of Akron and one of the authors of the study. Survey
respondents who fell into the “benevolently ageist” category of being
protective but patronizing tended to be more fearful of the pandemic’s
impact, washed their hands and felt strongly about the need to social
distance. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, examined the
results of a survey conducted in April and May of 335 people between the
ages of 18 and 80.
Another study, published in November by the Lancet, analyzed Twitter
posts about Covid-19 and older adults in the 10 days following the
declaration of the pandemic. It found that nearly one-fourth of the
tweets played down the importance of the virus because it was deadlier
among older individuals.
Concerns about ageism in the coronavirus era are mounting. The American
Psychological Association recently posted tips for its own members on
avoiding bias, including “being self aware,” about their language,
attitudes and assumptions. Previous research has identified hot spots in
the U.S. for Alzheimer’s disease.
“With the pandemic there has been a parallel outbreak of ageism,” wrote
a group of social scientists who specialize in aging for a piece in the
Journals of Gerontology. They cited references to people over 70 as
being uniformly helpless and discussions about chronological age being
used to determine who gets medical care.
Furthermore, many older people might internalize negative impressions
themselves and believe they are not worth medical care, says Becca Levy,
an epidemiologist and social psychologist at Yale University who has
been researching age stereotypes since the 1990s.
In a research paper published in the December Journal of the American
Geriatrics Society, she found that people 65 and older who had negative
age stereotypes didn’t think older persons who were “extremely sick with
Covid-19” should go to the hospital. “It suggests not feeling
worthwhile,” she says.
Another possible factor might be that older people tend to be
“generative” and concerned more about their children and grandchildren
getting medical care than themselves, she says. “It’s not necessarily
the result of ageism and internalized feelings about unworthiness, but
about what to give to grandchildren,” she says. “It gets complicated.”
The good news, she says, is that attitudes can change, which in turn can
improve health. Older persons with positive age stereotypes were 44%
more likely to fully recover from severe disability and had a lower risk
of developing dementia than those with negative age stereotypes,
according to her previous research.
Knowing the geography of ageism, as represented in the state study, is
important, she says, because it identifies where it needs to be
challenged. In the implicit age bias study of the 50 states, researchers
looked at test results in which respondents associated photos of young
and old people with positive words, like beautiful, or negative words,
like nasty. If they were faster to pair a young face with a positive
word than an old face, they were considered having an implicit
preference for young people.
Colorado scored low in implicit bias, which doesn’t surprise Don Roll,
an 82-year-old with four children and six grandchildren who lives
outside Denver. Recently, he started using a cane because his vision has
deteriorated. In grocery stores, as he taps down the aisles, he says
people ask if he needs help finding anything.
“It’s not that they are being condescending. They have been really nice
about it,” he says. “Maybe they realize that one day, if they make it
that far, they will be 82 as well.”
Write to Clare Ansberry at clare.ansberry-at-wsj.com
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