Event Title

The Use of a Paper and Pencil Analogue Task to Measure Ageism

Presenter Information

Cassie Nieman, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Location

CSU 201

Start Date

5-4-2010 10:00 AM

End Date

5-4-2010 12:00 PM

Student's Major

Psychology

Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mentor's Name

Jeffrey Buchanan

Mentor's Department

Psychology

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

Ageism is defined as any prejudice or discrimination against or in favor of an age group. As early as 1944, scales of ageism were developed to assess attitudes toward the elderly. Since then, multiple scales were developed, each attempting to create better methods to assess ageism. The present study will utilize an online survey from approximately 200 students from Minnesota State University, Mankato. The purpose of this study was to measure college students’ attitudes toward older adults using an established measure (i.e., the Aging Semantic Differential; ASD), and compare it with an analogue measure developed by the researcher. The analogue task depicted a specific real-life situation where an individual was directly in contact with an older individual. It is hypothesized that scores on the ASD and the analogue measure will be significantly positively correlated.