Dear TIPS Colleagues,
I'm currently wrapping up my work as editor of a new book, and I wanted to
bring it to your attention. --- Before I do that, I wanted to also bring to
your attention a symposium on Ageism at the APA convention in San Francisco (as
part of Division 8's program). It will be on Friday 8/24, from 9-11am in the
Moscone Center -- room 150, I believe). I'll chair the symposium, and we'll
hear discussions of research on Ageism from several distinguished researchers
(see Table of Contents below for more info). Hope to see you there!
The book is a scholarly volume entitled "Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice
Against Older Persons" (MIT Press). It will be available in February, 2002.
>From my preface to the book:
"In social perception, people tend to rather automatically categorize others
along three major dimensions: race, sex, and age (Kunda, 1999). Ever since the
early days of social psychology, researchers have been interested in the causes
and consequences of such categorization, with specific focus on the stereotypes
and prejudice that arise from this automatic social perception. While much
empirical and theoretical attention has been devoted to the study of racism and
sexism, comparatively very little research in psychology has been directed at
understanding what some refer to as the "third ism," ageism (Barrow & Smith,
1979). To illustrate this, consider the results of a PsycInfo database search I
conducted minutes ago. I ran 3 searches, and set up the search criteria to look
for either the word "racism" "sexism" or "ageism" anywhere in the abstract of
each article. The results indicated 2,215 articles for racism, 1,085 articles
for sexism, and a mere 215 articles with the term ageism in the citation
(incidentally, a title search yielded a similar pattern: 548, 249, and 68,
articles respectively). Clearly there has been a pattern of under-interest in
ageism research in the mainstream psychological literature.
But why the lack of interest? There are a myriad of possible reasons, but
perhaps the most obvious is that age prejudice is one of the most
socially-condoned, institutionalized forms of prejudice in the world -
especially in the United States -- today. For example, there's a whole industry
in the greeting card business built around the "over the hill" theme. Such
cards are often portrayed as humorous, but the essential message is that it is
undesirable to get older. As you will see in reading the chapters of this
volume, most Americans tend to have little tolerance for older persons, and
have very few reservations about harboring negative attitudes toward older
people.
Whatever the reasons for the comparative dearth of theoretical and empirical
research on ageism among psychologists, it is clear that much more research is
sorely needed. This volume addresses ageism from several different perspectives
(e.g., gerontology, communication, psychology), and the distinguished chapter
authors present the latest theoretical and empirical advances in our
understanding of the causes and effects of ageism."
Here is the Table of Contents for the book [note: * indicates APA Ageism
Symposium participant]:
I. Origins of Ageism
1. Doddering but dear: Process, content and function in stereotyping of
older persons -- Amy Cuddy & Susan T. Fiske
2. Ageism: Denying the face of the future -- Jeff Greenberg*, Jeff
Schimel, & Andy Mertens
3. Implicit ageism -- Becca Levy* & Mahzarin Banaji
4. A social-developmental view of ageism -- Joann Montepare & Leslie
Zebrowitz
II. Effects of Ageism
5. Attitudes toward older adults -- Mary Kite* & Lisa Wagner
6. Ageism in the workplace: A communication perspective -- Robert McCann
& Howard Giles
7. Ageist behavior -- Monisha Pasupathi & Corinna Lockenhoff*
8. The paradox of well-being, identity processes, and stereotype threat:
Ageism and its potential relationships to the self in later life
-- Susan K. Whitbourne & Joel Sneed
III. Reducing Ageism and Future Directions
9. Acting your age -- Sarit Golub, Allan Filipowicz, & Ellen Langer
10. Will families support their elders? Answers from across cultures --
Sik Hung Ng
11. Reducing ageism -- Valerie Braithwaite
12. 30 years of ageism research -- Jody Wilkinson & Kenneth Ferraro
[MIT Press doesn't yet have a web page created for the book, but when they're
ready for orders, I'll send that information to the list.]
Cheers,
Todd
Todd D. Nelson, Ph.D.
Gemperle Foundation Distinguished Professor
Department of Psychology
California State University
801 W. Monte Vista Ave
Turlock, CA 95382
Office: (209) 667-3442
FAX: (209) 664-7067
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.csustan.edu/psych/todd/index.html
