Centre for Policy on Ageing



The stereotypical fallacy — a comparison of Anglo and Chinese Australians' thoughts about facing death
Author(s)	Charles Waddell, Beverley McNamara
Journal title	Mortality, vol 2, no 2, 1997
Pages	pp 149-161
Keywords	Death ; Terminal care ; Attitude ; White people ; Chinese people ; Comparison ; Australia.
Annotation	A community sample is used to compare Anglo and Chinese Australians' thoughts about three dimensions of facing terminal illness and death. The results conform to the anecdotal expectation that Anglo-Australians are more likely to favour living wills, euthanasia and truth-telling about having a terminal illness than are Chinese Australians. While there is a necessity for awareness of ethnic variation, particularly in the sensitive area of dying and death, there is also individual variation within different cultures. This paper thus makes the important point that there is a danger involved in making the stereotypical fallacy of treating all Anglo-Australians one way, and all Chinese Australians another. Health and palliative care practitioners need to be aware of cultural differences, but sensitive to individual nuances. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-010606219 A
Classmark	CW: LV: DP: TKA: TKL: 48: 7YA *
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