Synonyms
Ageism; Discrimination; Internalized ageism; Prejudice; Stereotypes
Definition
An attitude may be defined as an internal affective orientation explaining an individual’s action (Reber 1995). They comprise four components: cognitive, affective, evaluative, and conative. The cognitive component refers to the opinions or schema held about an object. The affective component refers to the emotion or salience towards the attitude object. The evaluative component refers to the direction of the feeling, whether the object evokes a positive or negative emotion. Finally, the conative component of the attitude is the disposition for action (Maio et al. 2000). It is the combination of these components that determines the attitude held by an individual.
Attitudes: Explicit and Implicit
There are several characteristics that define an attitude within the 4-tier framework. First, an attitude is learned. Attitudes can be learned in many ways, the most prominent being personal experience,...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Anderson, N. (1971). Integration theory and attitude change. Psychological Review, 78, 171–206.
Angus, J., & Reeve, P. (2006). Ageism: A threat to “aging well” in the 21st century. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 25, 137–152.
Betsch, T., Plessner, H., & Schallies, E. (2004). The value-account model of attitude formation. In G. R. Maio & G. Haddock (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives on the psychology of attitudes (pp. 251–273). Hove: Psychology Press.
Duerson, M., Thomas, J., Chang, J., & Stevens, B. (1992). Medical students’ knowledge and misconceptions about ageing: Responses to Palmore’s facts on ageing quizzes. The Gerontologist, 32(2), 171–174.
Filipp, S., & Schmitt, K. (1995). Mittleres und hoheres Erwachsenenalter. In L. Montada (Ed.), Entwicklungspsychologie (pp. 439–486). Weinheim: Psychologie Verlags Union.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1974). Attitudes towards objects as predictors of single and multiple behavioural criteria. Psychological Review, 81, 59–74.
Greenwald, A., & Banaji, M. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self esteem and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4–27.
James, J., & Haley, W. (1995). Age and health bias in practicing clinical psychologists. Psychology and Ageing, 10, 610–616.
Kite, M., & Wagner, L. (2002). Attitudes toward older and younger adults. In T. Nelson (Ed.), Ageism: Stereotyping and prejudice against older persons (pp. 129–161). Boston: MIT Press.
Levy, B. (1996). Improving memory without awareness: Implicit self-stereotyping in old age. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 1092–1107.
Levy, B., & Banaji, M. (2002). Implicit ageism. In T. D. Nelson (Ed.), Ageism: Stereotyping and prejudice against older persons. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Levy, B., Ashman, O., & Dror, I. (2000). To be or not to be: The effects of ageing stereotypes on the will to live. Omega – Journal of Death and Dying, 40(3), 409–420.
Lynch, S. M. (2000). Measurement and prediction of aging anxiety. Research on Aging, 22(5), 553–558.
Maio, G., Esses, V., & Bell, D. (2000). Examining conflict between components of attitude: Ambivalence and inconsistency are distinct constructs. Canadian Journal of Social Science, 32(1), 58–70.
Perugini, M. (2005). Predictive models of implicit and explicit attitudes. The British Journal of Social Psychology, 44(1), 29–46.
Prestwich, A., Kenworthy, J., Wilson, M., & Kwan-Tat, N. (2008). Differential relations between two types of contact and implicit and explicit racial attitudes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 575–588.
Reber, A. (1995). Dictionary of psychology. London: Penguin Reference.
Tam, T., Hewstone, M., Harwodd, J., Voci, A., & Kenworthy, J. (2006). Intergroup contact and grandparent-grandchild communication: The effects of self-disclosure on implicit and explicit biases against older people. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9(3), 413–429.
Westmoreland, G., Counsell, S., Sennour, Y., Schubert, C., Frank, K., Wu, J., Frankel, R., Litzelman, D., Bogdeic, S., & Inui, T. (2009). Improving medical student’s attitudes towards older patients through a council of elders and reflective writing experience. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 57, 315–320.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this entry
Cite this entry
Nash, P. (2017). Attitudes and Self-Perceptions of Aging. In: Pachana, N.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-287-081-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-287-082-7
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences