COMPARING AMERICAN AND CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES, ANXIETY, AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT AGING

The current study addresses a cross-cultural research question: how similar and different are Chinese and American young people in their attitudes toward aging, anxiety, and knowledge about aging? Seven hundred seventy-nine college students (434 Chinese, 345 American) filled out a questionnaire that included Kogan’s attitudes toward old people scale, a modified aging anxiety scale, and Palmer’s aging facts, as well as some background information. Cronbach’s alphas indicate satisfactory internal consistency of all three scales for both groups. Results show that the American participants scored significantly higher on the attitudes toward aging scale than the Chinese participants, indicating they hold more positive aging attitudes. The Chinese participants on the other hand scored significantly higher than their American counterparts on the anxiety scale, indicating they are more anxious about aging. The two cultural groups did not differ significantly on the aging knowledge scale. We also found that for both groups, all three aspects examined in this study are significantly correlated. Specifically, aging attitudes is positively related to aging knowledge but negatively related to aging anxiety; and aging anxiety is also negatively related to aging knowledge. There are also gender differences within and across the two groups. We hope these findings will contribute to literature on cross-cultural research of young people’s views on aging and the elderly. We will discuss the effects of globalization regarding whether Chinese young people are able to hold onto a core traditional value “filial piety” that has been essential in preserving intergenerational families in Chinese history.