There is a great deal of research literature exploring age-related stereotypes and how these biased expectations affect social perception and social interactions. However, very little of this research focuses on emotional stereotypes and their practical implications for people as they mature. The current studies were designed to explore people's emotional stereotypes of others across the life span and the impact these beliefs have on people's perceptions of adults' emotional behavior. More specifically, the first study examined stereotypes about the experience and expression of emotions from infancy through late adulthood for both males and females. Participants completed questionnaires regarding their beliefs about the frequency of experiencing and expressing twenty-five basic and complex emotions of people of various ages throughout the life span. Results demonstrated strong evidence for systematic stereotypes of the experience and expression of various types of emotion across the life span. While the experience and expression of basic emotions is expected to decline from infancy to adulthood, a reverse trend was observed for complex emotions. That is, the experience and expression of complex emotion is thought to occur more often in older adults and least often in infants. Furthermore, middle-aged and older adults are thought to be more emotional overall than young adults. In addition, these age-related stereotypes are held by both young and older participants. These results are discussed and compared to previous research. The second study assessed the extent to which the emotional stereotypes observed in Study One influence the attributions people make about the emotional behavior of young and older adults. Study Two also explored participants' cognitive styles (i.e. implicit person theory, self-monitoring and age stereotyping) and the role they play in evaluating the emotional behavior of different aged adults. Results revealed that when older adults acted in an emotional way, participants attributed their behavior to internal factors and not to external or social factors. On the other hand, when young adults acted emotionally, their behavior was attributed to external factors and not internal factors. These attributions held true independent of the participants' cognitive style suggesting the pervasiveness of age-related stereotypes of emotionality and their social consequences. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting