Self-perceptions of ageing from a cross-cultural perspective: do collectivist cultures provide a buffering effect for the impact of negative stereotypes about age?

Abstract

Negative attitudes towards ageing can have detrimental long-term effects to health, self-esteem and employment prospects of older people. Individuals making the transition from mid-life into old age can be highly sensitive to age ‘stereotype threat’, a phenomenon of anxiety arising from the fear of being reduced to a stereotype that can result in poor memory performance on simple tasks (Hess et al., 2004; Levy at al., 2002; von Hippel et al., 2013; Nguyen, 2008). Cross-cultural studies have shown stark differences in memory performance between older Chinese and older Americans (Levy and Langer, 1994). Yoon et al (2000) observed some differences in two out of five memory tests between Chinese Canadians and Anglophone Canadians, but questioned whether culture or language accounted for this variance. In the present set of studies, it was hypothesised that those with a more interdependent self-concept from a collectivist culture (Markus and Kitayama, 1991) would have more positive attitudes to ageing and therefore not be as affected by negative age stereotypes compared to individualists. This thesis explored this using mixed methods. The first study was qualitative and comprised focus group discussions of 3–6 people (n = 53) on ‘transitioning through life stages’ with younger (20 –35 years) and older (60–96 years) adults from Australia and the Philippines, to understand some of the deeper culturally influenced attitudes about ageing. The other two studies were quantitative. Another sample of older adults (52–79 years old, Australians n = 66; Filipinos n = 41) carried out memory tests under stereotype threat conditions and participated in a survey on cultural orientation and attitudes towards ageing. For both nationalities, the subtle explicit primes about age that constitute ‘stereotype threat’ did not have a significant effect on memory performance. However, a multiple regression analysis revealed that the culture in which one lives (i.e. Australia/ individualistic versus the Philippines/ collectivistic) is associated with psychological growth in old age. The items of this subscale are characterised as framing ageing in a more positive manner such as: “It is a privilege to grow old” and “As people get older they are better able to cope with life”. When cultural orientation (Bierbrauer et al., 1994) was entered into the regression model, it was significantly associated with all domains of the Attitudes towards Ageing Questionnaire and not just psychological growth (Laidlaw et al., 2007). That is, those who were higher on collectivist orientation tended to also have overall positive attitudes towards psychological growth, physical change and psychological loss than those with a lower cultural orientation score (those with more individualistic orientation). This finding from the survey supports Levy’s (2009) work on stereotype embodiment that asserts that an individual’s surrounding culture can influence the way they perceive themselves as they age. Overall, the studies in this thesis show that if one grows up in a culture with a higher degree of intergenerational contact, where age is seen in a more positive light, then one is less likely to be affected by negative attitudes to ageing. Implications for these findings on social policy are elaborated upon within the chapters of this thesis. Show more