Different ways of perceiving the aging process: Social behaviors of women and men in relation to age discrimination

Abstract

Based on the original survey “Relating to Older People Evaluation” (ROPE) by Cherry and Palmore (2008), we have elaborated the instrument Evaluation for Older Adults that consists of 20 items. In this project, we intend on studying the positive and negative behaviors which people have been able to inter- nalize during their daily life, as well as a previous psychometric analysis about the validity of the instru- ment. The sample is formed by, on one side, students of Psycho pedagogy, and the other side, older stu- dents that belong to the Class of Experience of the University of Seville. The results obtained suggest that the majority of the people take into consideration the positive behaviors, and both the young and the older adults reinforce the behaviors of and toward the older adults. It is important to highlight the significant differences as far as gender in relation to the internalization of positive behaviors, being more frequent in women than in men. In the discussion, we analyze the implications about social perception towards older people as a social phenomenon, as well as the strategies to reduce the negative behaviors towards older people in daily life.