Do Collectivist Cultures Provide a Buffering Effect for the Impact of Negative Stereotypes About Age?

Self-perceptions of ageing from a cross-cultural perspective: do collectivist cultures provide a buffering effect for the impact of negative stereotypes about age? Natasha Ginnivan A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University September 2016 i Declaration Except where indicated, this thesis is my own original work carried out during my PhD at the Australian National University. Natasha Ginnivan September 2016 ii “If one wants to age well, one must start when one is young” ~ Spanish proverb iii Acknowledgements I would firstly like to thank my supervisory panel, and panel chair Professor Kaarin Anstey, who believed in my research ideas and provided steadfast support for all the twists and turns that this thesis project took. To Dr. Kerry Sargent, for diligently listening, responding and often re-focusing my ideas when needed across the full five and half years of this thesis project – thank you. Dr Kerry Sargent’s constant considered feedback was a critical support in moving the thesis along. Thank you A/Professor Kate O’Loughlin, who stepped in halfway through the project and has provided me with ongoing mentoring on the qualitative research within this thesis and for providing an outlet for discussing the challenges of both the project and everyday life! Many thanks to Professor Becca Levy who was instrumental in helping me set up the design of two of my studies, providing feedback for my papers and for meeting with me at various international conferences. Thank you to my colleagues from the Centre for Research on Ageing Health and Wellbeing at the Australian National University. Many of my CRAHW colleagues and fellow PhD students provided helpful advice and support over the last five and half years for which I am grateful. In particular I would like to thank Dr. Richard Burns and Dr. Ranmalee Eramudugolla for providing advice on statistical analysis, Dr. Moyra Mortby who was a source of constant support through various ups and downs across the project. Thank you also to Elsabe Edwards for your support and also Dr Alex Bahar- Fuchs for advising me about various memory tests at the beginning of my thesis project. Also, thank you Dr. Sarang Kim who would promptly reply to every and any little inquiry about the process of thesis-writing no matter how small. Thank you also to my CRAHW office mates Chwee von Sanden and Lara Morris for sharing information and listening to the many different ideas, challenges and issues in the early stages of the project. I would not have been able to undertake the research in this thesis without the funding provided through the ANU PhD Scholarship (Domestic - 1183a/2010). I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), especially those at the UNSW node; Professor John Piggott, Anne Gordon, Amy Brushwood and Annabella McHugh for generously housing my research and providing support when I relocated back to Sydney. The CEPAR scholarship was iv supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (project number CE110001029). Various other advisors along the way have been Dr. Robert Heard, who gave up some of his time to advise me on some of the more complex methods of data analysis. Also, I would like to thank Professor Bill von Hippel who answered some of my various email queries on issues to do with social psychology. Thank you to Patricia Corbett for providing a keen eye and picking up things that I may otherwise not have seen and Malini Devadas for helping me in my final hour and my good friend Andrew. I am also grateful to all the participants of my studies and the University of the Philippines who were instrumental in helping me recruit participants for my focus groups. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support. It’s been a challenge for my two children Joshua and Sammi who have done their best to fit in with their Mum’s busy schedule, I thank them for their understanding and support. Thank you to the ‘ballet mum’s support group’ for all the help! To Steven, for being a responsive and helpful co-parent and to his folks Joseph and Gerda for helping support the children – thank you. Thank you to my Aunty Mildred Pfleider and my cousin Elsie Pfleider for your help and support. Thank you to my parents Bill and Loretta and my brothers Rob and Greg and their families who have always supported and been proud of my achievements. To Simon, who saw me struggling in the last stretch of thesis- revisions, and patiently waited it out – thank you! Lastly, to my good friend John Clarke, thank you for planting the seed in my head - that if I wanted to study psychology, I could. Fifteen years later, I am turning in this body of work which I would never have dreamed of doing were it not for your suggestion to take up psychology as an undergraduate degree all those years ago! v Abstract Negative attitudes towards ageing can have detrimental long-term effects to health, self- esteem and employment prospects of older people. Individuals making the transition from mid-life into old age can be highly sensitive to age ‘stereotype threat’, a phenomenon of anxiety arising from the fear of being reduced to a stereotype that can result in poor memory performance on simple tasks (Hess et al., 2004; Levy at al., 2002; von Hippel et al., 2013; Nguyen, 2008). Cross-cultural studies have shown stark differences in memory performance between older Chinese and older Americans (Levy and Langer, 1994). Yoon et al (2000) observed some differences in two out of five memory tests between Chinese Canadians and Anglophone Canadians, but questioned whether culture or language accounted for this variance. In the present set of studies, it was hypothesised that those with a more interdependent self-concept from a collectivist culture (Markus and Kitayama, 1991) would have more positive attitudes to ageing and therefore not be as affected by negative age stereotypes compared to individualists. This thesis explored this using mixed methods. The first study was qualitative and comprised focus group discussions of 3–6 people (n = 53) on ‘transitioning through life stages’ with younger (20 –35 years) and older (60–96 years) adults from Australia and the Philippines, to understand some of the deeper culturally influenced attitudes about ageing. The other two studies were quantitative. Another sample of older adults (52–79 years old, Australians n = 66; Filipinos n = 41) carried out memory tests under stereotype threat conditions and participated in a survey on cultural orientation and attitudes towards ageing. For both nationalities, the subtle explicit primes about age that constitute ‘stereotype threat’ did not have a significant effect on memory performance. However, a multiple regression analysis revealed that the culture in which one lives (i.e. Australia/ individualistic versus the Philippines/ collectivistic) is associated with psychological growth in old age. The items of this subscale are characterised as framing ageing in a more positive manner such as: “It is a privilege to grow old” and “As people get older they are better able to cope with life”. When cultural orientation (Bierbrauer et al., 1994) was entered into the regression model, it was significantly associated with all domains of the Attitudes towards Ageing Questionnaire and not just psychological growth (Laidlaw et al., 2007). That is, those who were higher on collectivist orientation tended to also have overall positive attitudes vi towards psychological growth, physical change and psychological loss than those with a lower cultural orientation score (those with more individualistic orientation). This finding from the survey supports Levy’s (2009) work on stereotype embodiment that asserts that an individual’s surrounding culture can influence the way they perceive themselves as they age. Overall, the studies in this thesis show that if one grows up in a culture with a higher degree of intergenerational contact, where age is seen in a more positive light, then one is less likely to be affected by negative attitudes to ageing. Implications for these findings on social policy are elaborated upon within the chapters of this thesis. vii Publications arising from this thesis Journal article Ginnivan, N., (2015) Media Portrayal of Older People: the good, the bad and the absent Generations Review, British Society of Gerontology, 25, 4-8 Conference paper Ginnivan, N., Anstey, K. J., Sargent-Cox, K., & Levy, B.R. (November, 2011). Self- perceptions of ageing from a cross-cultural perspective: do collectivist cultures provide a buffering effect for the impact of negative attitudes about age? Paper presented at the Emerging Research in Ageing Conference, Sydney, Australia. (ERA 2011 award for the best paper presentation by a student) Conference abstracts Ginnivan, N., Anstey, K. J., O’Loughlin, K. Sargent-Cox, K., & Levy, B.R. (December, 2015). Self-perceptions of ageing from a cross-cultural perspective: do collectivist cultures provide a buffering effect for the impact of negative attitudes about age? Emerging Research in Ageing Conference, National Institute of Ageing Research, Melbourne, Australia. Ginnivan, N, Sargent-Cox, K., O’Loughlin, K., Levy, B.R. & Anstey, K. (April, 2015). Transitioning through Life Stages: Similarities and Differences between Young and Old in two differing Cultures. International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics 8th Congress - Masterclass, Dublin, Ireland. Ginnivan, N, Sargent-Cox, K., O’Loughlin, K., Levy, B.R., Parcon, A.M., & Anstey, K. (July, 2013). Transitioning through Life Stages: Similarities and Differences between Young and Old in two differing Cultures in Self-Perceptions of Ageing. Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research 1st International Conference, Sydney, Australia.

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