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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Perceptions of competence
— age moderates views of healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease | | Author(s) | Jane M Berry, Helen L Williams, Kevin D Thomas, Jamie Blair |
| Journal title | Experimental Aging Research, vol 41, no 2, March-April 2015 |
| Publisher | Taylor and Francis, March-April 2015 |
| Pages | pp 157-176 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Good Health ; Dementia ; Competence ; Attitude ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Age groups [elderly] ; Young adults [20-25] ; Comparison ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Older adults have more complex and differentiated views of ageing than do younger adults, but less is known about age-related perceptions of Alzheimer's disease. This study investigated age-related perceptions of competence of an older adult labelled as "in good health" (healthy) or "has Alzheimer's disease" (AD), using a person-perception paradigm. It was predicted that older adults would provide more differentiated assessments of the two targets than would younger adults. 86 younger adults (age 18-36 years) and 66 older adults (age 61-95 years) rated activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) and memory abilities of a female target aged 75 years, described as healthy or with AD. Data on anxiety about ageing, knowledge of and experience with ageing and AD, knowledge of memory ageing, and positive and negative biases toward ageing and AD were also collected. Older adults perceived the healthy target as more capable of cognitively effortful activities (e.g. managing finances), and as possessing better memory abilities than the AD target. As predicted, these differences were greater than differences between targets perceived by younger adults. The interaction effect remained significant after statistically controlling for relevant variables, including education and gender. Additionally, exploratory analyses revealed that older adults held less positively biased views of AD than younger adults, but negatively biased views were equivalent between age groups. The results demonstrate that mere labels of "healthy" and "Alzheimer's disease" produce significant and subtle age differences in perceived competencies of older adults, and that biases towards AD vary by age group and valency. The findings extend the person-perception paradigm to an integrative analysis of ageing and AD, are consistent with models of adult development, and complement current research and theory on stereotypes of ageing. Future directions for research on perceptions of ageing are suggested. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150529279 A |
| Classmark | CD: EA: DPB: DP: TOB: BB: SD6: 48: 7T |
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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