Is older adult care mediated by caregivers’ cultural stereotypes? The role of competence and warmth attribution

The stereotype content model (SCM) posits that cultural stereotypes can be grouped into two basic dimensions of social perception: warmth and competence.

Different clusters of high vs low warmth and competence cultural stereotypes were tested by Cuddy et al across widely varied target groups, from national and ethnic to age and sex.

Moreover, these patterns appeared to be universal in USA and in 17 other nations. Age is one of the primary characteristics of interpersonal categorization, as are sex and ethnicity, but it is a physical and objective attribute of the individual measured across the lifespan as years lived.

In fact, however, it is not age, but rather the process of aging associated with decline, illness, and death that is the central dimension for negative aging stereotyping as well as for the prejudice and discrimination to which older adults are subjected in most societies.