The purpose of the present research was to identify and compare stereotypes about elderly men and elderly women held by university students. Forty young male and female students of a mid-size university participated in the study. They performed a trai...
The purpose of the present research was to identify and compare stereotypes about elderly men and elderly women held by university students. Forty young male and female students of a mid-size university participated in the study. They performed a trait-sorting task in which they were to categorize various traits of older persons into stereotypes. Trait groupings were analyzed with hierarchical cluster analysis. The results show that overall, the students have three positive stereotypes and seven negative stereotypes about the elderly. However, there tended to be some differences between stereotypes of elderly men and those of elderly women. Specifically, there were two more negative stereotypes about elderly male than about elderly women: authoritarian and non-active. These results suggest that university students had more negative stereotypes about the elderly than positive stereotypes, regardless of the gender of the elderly. On the other hand, the students tended to have somewhat different stereotypes about elderly male versus elderly female based on the traditional sex role.