Theories of Age Stereotyping and Views of Aging

Stereotypes are cognitive representations – or schemata – of beliefs regarding the characteristics of a group of people that are typically shared by individuals within a culture or social group. These representations play an important role in social interactions by influencing our perceptions of others based upon their membership in stereotyped groups, thereby allowing us to draw inferences about their behavior. Of course, the accuracy of such inferences is dependent upon the accuracy of the stereotype and its appropriate application to a specific target individual. Given the relative inaccuracy of many social stereotypes, however, their influence often leads to biased perceptions of others. The information contained in these representations is also evaluative in nature, and thus stereotypes form the basis for attitudes that we may have toward members of specific social groups. In other words, the content and evaluative components of stereotypes can play an important role in howwe perceive and respond to others in social situations, which in turn can influence the nature of social interactions and the behavior of others. Although most early social psychological theory and research focused on such effects, more recent work has addressed self-stereotyping influences reflecting the degree to which stereotypical beliefs or situational activation of stereotypes affects an individual’s behavior independent of the behavior of others. Research on self-stereotyping effects forms the bulk of much recent aging research and thus is the focus of this section.