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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Age excuses
— conversational management of memory failures in older adults | | Author(s) | Ellen Bouchard Ryan, Sherrie Bieman-Copland, Sheree T Kwong |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 57B, no 3, May 2002 |
| Pages | pp P256-P267 |
| Keywords | Cognitive processes ; Memory and Reminiscence ; Mental ageing ; Age groups [elderly] ; Young adults [20-25] ; Canada. |
| Annotation | The social consequences of appealing to age to excuse memory failure were examined in two Canadian vignette-based studies. In Study 1, 75 older (mean age 72) and 78 younger (mean age 22) adults evaluated forgetful older targets in their 70s, who used their age, lack of ability, lack of effort, or the situation to explain forgetting. In Study 2, 105 older (mean age 72) and 105 younger (mean age 19) participants evaluated forgetful targets with no specific age given in 4 excuse conditions (age, ability, situation, and no excuses). In support of the prediction of positive consequences, age excuses were rated as more believable than situation in both studies, and more believable and socially fluent than effort in Study 1. In support of predictions for negative consequences, both groups in Study 2 rated targets who used an age excuse to be much older than their peers and, along with ability excuse users, as eliciting more worry and frustration than the others. Moreover, young adults showed additional sensitivity to the negative aspects of age excuses in terms of worry and frustration in Study 1, and anticipated repeat forgetting in Study 2. Thus, although age excuses may relieve socially awkward situations, this strategy reinforces negative age stereotyping of the older forgetter. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020617208 A |
| Classmark | DA: DB: D6: BB: SD6: 7S |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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