THE MANY FORMS OF AGEISM: AGE DIFFERENCES IN EXPERIENCE TYPE, EMOTIONAL IMPACT, AND COPING STRATEGIES

Young, middle-aged, and older adults described a personal experience with ageism, rated the emotional impact, and reported strategies they used to cope with the situation and with ageism experiences in general. Domain and content of the experience differed by age group in ways that were consistent with a person’s stage in life. Young and middle-aged participants reported experiencing ageism most frequently in the workplace, whereas older adults reported ageism from service workers. Within the workplace, young adults reported facing assumptions of incompetence, whereas middle-aged adults reported experiencing less respect. Consistent with emotion regulation literature, older adults reported a less negative emotional response to ageism compared to young and middle-aged adults. When asked about coping strategies, all participants reported acceptance of the specific experience they shared. In response to ageism in general, older adults reported accepting the ageist action, whereas young and middle-aged adults coped by being dismissive of the perpetrator.