We are all ageists and this hurts us
From a very early age, we embody stereotypes towards older people: we learn to fear them, we associate them with negative qualities, in order to validate ourselves
Professor Liat Ayalon, Deputy Chair and Chair of the Supplementary Study Program for a Master’s Degree at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
A tropical climate is not the best friend of books. As I learned living in South East Asia, the colors on the covers fade because of the intense sunlight and even inside, the pages age. Once white, they turn gradually to brown and tiny dots of mold begin to appear here and there. Being that books are my most precious possession, my heart misses a beat when I pick one up and notice a decline I cannot stop. While I decided to interpret the whole process as an exercise in detachment, I still keep a caring eye on them and that’s how I noticed a particular book. Moved from its place to another by a guest, the title of an essay by the American historian William Sheridan Allen flashed unexpectedly at me a few months ago. The book is The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945. It is a detailed analysis of how the citizens of a little town some eighty miles South of Berlin adopted Nazi propaganda and became active supporters of the party. My copy is in Italian and the title was translated a bit differently: How to Become a Nazi. Because of my journey in the realm of aging, I was receptive to the question “how,” and I wondered: how do we become ageist? It’s true that we live in an ageist society, but the society is not ageist by itself. It’s us, the people who, consciously or not, bring this view to life. Allen’s book moved from my bookcase to my desk. Keeping the question alive, I looked for an answer and I finally encountered the work of Professor Liat Ayalon.
Deputy Chair and Chair of the Supplementary Study Program for a Master’s Degree at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv in Israel, Professor Ayalon is a researcher at the School of Social Work and she coordinates an international EU founded Ph.D. program on the topic of ageism. Furthermore, she’s the co-author with Sagit Lev, of the Department of Social Work at Ariel University in Israel and Susanne Wurm, of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany of the paper: “Origins of Ageism at the Individual Level.” In a handful of intense considerations, Professor Ayalon and her colleagues expose the underlying psychological mechanisms that generate an us-versus-them response to aging and limit our ability to develop harmonious relationships along the whole age-span.
Contrary to other antagonist ideologies, like sexism or racism, ageism has its own peculiarities. One is that, because we move along the whole age spectrum, from young to old, ageism is a form of prejudice directed towards our future selves. Basically, we go from practicing ageism to suffering from it. But that’s not all. We are used to thinking about ageism as a singular noun, but as I learned from reading (and re-reading) Professor Ayalon’s rich paper, ageism is nuanced and varied accordingly to our “position” in the age-span, and our extended longevity adds another layer of complexity. There are psychological and sociological explanations for the existence of ageism and my article is not meant as an indictment nor an acquittal of our behavior. It is just a tool, to navigate our time, our age, and our future.
Can you tell us more about how we adopt an ageist view?
There’s not one single theory, but many. We, in particular, considered three different theories that, together, contribute to explain the psychological and sociological processes that constitute the basis of ageism at the individual level. The theories are the “Terror management theory” (Greenberg et al. 1986); the “Stereotype embodiment theory” (Levy 2009); and the “Social identity theory” (Tajfel and Turner 1979). The Terror management theory is a social and evolutionary psychology theory codified in the book The Worm at the Core: on the Role of Death in Life, written by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Psyzczynski.
This theory claims that, because humans possess the cognitive ability to picture one’s death, this creates the potential for a paralyzing terror. In order to manage the anxiety brought about by the awareness of mortality, humans unconsciously sustain faith in cultural world views, which enable them to portray human life as meaningful, important, and enduring.
According to the Terror management theory, then, old age undermines our confidence in our worldview and self-esteem and therefore ageism can be seen as an unconscious defense against the encounter with the older age group. From a very early age, in fact, we embody stereotypes towards older people: we learn to fear them, we associate them with negative qualities, in order to validate ourselves.
From your paper, I understood that when we factor age into the equation, things get even more complicated. Can you explain what it means?
The roots and the dynamics of ageism during the life span vary among different age groups. Studies indicate that this mechanism is relevant mostly among young and middle-aged groups and to some extent among old-young adults. It becomes less relevant among the old-old age group, suggesting a gradual reduction of death anxiety in this age group and a greater acceptance of the inevitability of death.
In empirical literature, it is common to divide the adult population into three main age groups: young adults, those who go from 18 to 34–39 years old; middle-aged adults, from 35–40 to 59–65 years, and older adults, from aged 60–68 and up. Due to increased longevity and improvement in the quality of life, there is a tendency to segment the old age group further. The third age goes from 65 to 80-85 and the fourth age includes people older than 80-85. Some authors have suggested even more detailed division of the fourth age that can be split into three distinct groups: old (75–84), old-old (85–95), and oldest-old (95+).
Unlike other social characteristics, such as gender or race, where membership tends to be permanent during the lifespan, the boundaries between different age groups are permeable and temporary. Thus, although middle-aged adults may perceive themselves as an in-group, and older adults as an out-group, these distinctions don’t stand the test of time.
What role do the two additional theories play in your framework?
The second theory we considered is the “Stereotype Embodiment Theory.” The internalization of negative attitudes towards the self among older adults could be explained by the unique features of different age groups. Unlike other social groups, which tend to be a part of the individual identity for a prolonged period of time - for example a career or parenthood -, individuals pass through different age groups during their life course. Thus, negative attitudes and stereotypes of older adults, which the individual has internalized during his/her lifespan, are often unconsciously embodied in old age
The “Social Identity Theory” stresses the fact that people want to have a positive social-identity. A way to achieve this goal is demonstrating biases that create a positive distinction between one’s in-group - the group people feel they belong to - and the out-groups - the groups people want to differentiate from, and by elevating their in-group status above that of other groups.
Do social representations and ageist stereotypes fuel the tendency to differentiate one’s self from the older cohort?
By examining different age groups in relation to social identity theory, we can infer that young and middle-aged adults might create a positive unique identity, which consists of their age group, by differentiating themselves from and elevating themselves above the old age group. Older adults try to disassociate from other older adults and not to see themselves as old because of the devalued status of old age. This tendency might increase due to society’s negative stereotypes of older adults, which the individual has internalized during his/her lifespan and which are often unconsciously embodied in old age.
Within the framework of the Terror management theory, how do you explain the negative reaction towards the older cohort of people?
Deriving from the Terror management theory, Jeff Greenberg, Andy Martens and other colleagues have identified three psychological threats that contribute to explain the negative approach: the threat of death, the threat of animality and the threat of insignificance. We know that older adults serve as a direct reminder of our inevitable mortality. A sense of threat is embedded in the human awareness that aging leads to death, hence the need to differentiate from the older and vulnerable ones and to strengthen the identification with the people we associate with.
The second threat is related to the deterioration of the physical body that is reflected in older adults’ physical appearance - like the wrinkles - as well as in the physical and cognitive decline that is often seen in older age, and in the diminishing control over bodily functions that older adults often experience. Again, these characteristics of old age remind us that, like all animals, we are flesh and blood creatures who are vulnerable to death.
Finally, there’s the threat of insignificance. Ageism might evoke perceptions concerning the difficulty of preserving positive self-esteem in old age, a vital resource in human life, because, as we have seen, it buffers the potential for death-related anxiety. Social perceptions and stereotypes often associate old age with ongoing loss of abilities and resources. These abilities and resources are perceived as crucial to acquiring and preserving self-esteem in youth and middle-aged individuals. As a result, these age groups might perceive the older adults as a threat, since they serve as potent reminders of the transitory nature of the positive attributes.
We tend to think about ageism as manifested negative stereotypes. I learned from your article that also positive stereotypes play a part. What type of influence do they have?
We use stereotypes to process data, to make our life easier. In the early days, stereotypes towards aging portrayed by the media used to be negative, but now they are also positive with not much in between. The relative absence of alternatives in the way we represent aging makes things quite challenging. Even when old age representations are positive, they tend to be devalued in society, relative to the stereotypes of youth. Thus, although people might have a nuanced view of old age as having both positive and negative attributes, they act consciously and unconsciously to differentiate themselves from this age group due to the threats embedded in it. Based on a European social survey, it emerges that younger people don’t have relationships with older people, they see themselves as different and we know too well how our society is segregated by age.
The desire of the middle-age and the young-old age groups to differentiate themselves from the old age group is also reflected in theories such as successful aging and active aging, that focus on positive aspects of aging. These theories undermine the prevailing assumptions that aging is necessarily characterized by physical and cognitive deterioration, disease, and social isolation and emphasize the potential for maintaining physical, social, and mental wellbeing throughout the life course. According to these theories, successful or active aging can be achieved by reducing risks for disease and disabilities, maximizing cognitive and physical function, maintaining interpersonal relations, continuing one’s engagement in productive activities, and participating in social, economic, cultural, spiritual, and civic affairs.
Despite the dominance of these theories, there have been calls over the years that have questioned their legitimacy. These calls have argued that the distinction between successful and unsuccessful agers follows an ageist worldview, as “successful” old age is seen as a continuation of middle age and avoidance of all illness and deterioration. Furthermore, the paradigm in these theories reflects Western values of independence and productivity and fails to address values of intergenerational solidarity or harmonization that may be of greater relevance for defining desirable old age for some groups of older adults.
A similar criticism is directed toward the distinction between the third and the fourth age, as the fourth age is perceived as the “real old age” and includes all negative attitudes of society toward this age group. We suggest that due to the significant threats of death and deterioration that are embedded in old age, the perception of a subjective young age identity ingrained in theories such as successful aging and active aging are essential and have positive outcomes. However, these strategies are temporary. Even if an older adult uses all of his or her efforts to maintain good health and good physical and cognitive functioning, he or she would not be able to ignore the deterioration which is almost inevitable in the later stages of life.
Therefore, a young subjective age identity and theories like successful aging and active aging can serve as short-term strategies that are mostly relevant to the middle-age and young-old age groups, but they gradually become less relevant in the later stages of life, especially in the old-old age group. The encounter with the gradual reduction of physical, cognitive, and social resources in the later stages of life requires the adoption of long-term strategies that do not ignore and repress the inevitable deterioration and death that are embedded in the life course.
You wrote about less famous alternatives such as “conscious aging” and “harmonious aging.” Would it be a good idea to include them in our lexicon?
These strategies include first a recognition of meaningful decline as a valid dimension of aging and personhood. Second, they pose an alternative to values that emphasize functionality by valuing resources such as tradition, wisdom, memory, narrative, change, generation, and leadership. According to conscious aging theory, old age is characterized by processes of decrement and compensation. These processes promote a creative response to disability whereby losses are balanced by gains and the decline is compensated for by spiritual insight, as old age can be an opportunity for spiritual growth.
Similarly, the “harmonious aging” theory, which is inspired by Eastern philosophy, possesses a dialectic and holistic aging approach that allows for cross-cultural, liberal, inclusive, and open discourses that emphasize the complementary coexistence of body and mind. The theory defines “harmonious aging” as a balanced outlook towards the aging process, which follows the natural laws of the human body and promotes cultivating a sense of harmony with oneself and one’s surroundings. This balanced and harmonious outlook promotes handling challenges and thus making adaptations accordingly.
