title: The impact of age stereotypes on self-perceptions of aging across the adult lifespan.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Individuals' perceptions of their own age(ing) are important correlates of well-being and health. The goals of the present study were to (a) examine indicators of self-perceptions of aging across adulthood and (b) experimentally test whether age stereotypes influence self-perceptions of aging.
  
  
  METHODS
  Adults 18-92 years of age were presented with positive, negative, or no age stereotypes. Before and after the stereotype activation, aging satisfaction and subjective age were measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The activation of positive age stereotypes did not positively influence self-perceptions of aging. Quite the contrary, priming middle-aged and older adults in good health with positive age stereotypes made them feel older. After the activation of negative age stereotypes, older adults in good health felt older and those in bad health wanted to be younger than before the priming. Even younger and middle-aged adults reported younger desired ages after the negative age stereotype priming. Persons in bad health also thought they looked older after being primed with negative age stereotypes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Taken together, although we find some support for contrast effects, most of our results can be interpreted in terms of assimilation effects, suggesting that individuals integrate stereotypical information into their self-evaluations of age(ing) when confronted with stereotypes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7650, Raleigh, NC 27695-7650, USA. kotter@ncsu.edu
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kotter-Grühn
authors.forename: Thomas M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Hess
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011287:Prejudice; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D013240:Stereotyping; D055815:Young Adult