Abstract

People generally exhibit ageism toward older adults that adversely affects the older adults' health status. The prescriptive stereotypes held by younger individuals, such as succession (i.e., older adults should not accumulate wealth and pass it on to the younger generation), consumption (i.e., older adults should not receive more social security than they need), and identity (i.e., older adults should behave in an age-appropriate manner without trying to look young), account for the ageism. Moreover, if younger people see an older person violating such stereotypes, their ageism toward them will increase. We conducted an online experiment with young Japanese participants (N = 931). Each participant read one of the six vignettes about an older person who violated/observed the succession/consumption/identity aspect of prescriptive stereotypes. Results reveal that except for a single case involving the succession stereotype, other participants who read the vignettes of an older person violating prescriptive stereotypes did not exhibit more ageism than those who read the vignettes of an older person who observed the stereotypes. However, this result might be due to the inadequate sample size, and further research is required.