The Gerontologist cite as: Gerontologist, 2017, Vol. 57, No. S2, S118–S126 doi:10.1093/geront/gnx059

Forum Age- Paradox: Opportunity for Social Change Becca R. Levy, PhD* Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut.

*Address correspondence to: Becca R. Levy, Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, 60 College Street, PO Box 208034, New Haven, CT 06520-8034. E-mail: [email protected]

Received: September 15, 2016; Editorial Decision Date: March 30, 2017

Decision Editor: Tamara Sims, PhD

Abstract An age-stereotype paradox has developed in the due to factors that would suggest age should be increasing in positivity over time; whereas, recent evidence shows they are becoming more negative. Reasons for pre- dicting an increase in positivity are presented, followed by reasons that help to explain why the reverse is occurring. To illustrate the age-stereotype paradox, four domains that help to shape the status of older individuals were selected: health, intergenerational contact, legislation, and social climate. Two proposals are then made for eliminating the paradox by reversing the age-stereotypes negativity trend: establishment of an anti-aging czar and the launching of an aging-rights movement.

Keywords: Age stereotypes, Attitudes toward aging, , Older adults, Social change, Social movement

Maggie Kuhn, the founder of the Gray Panthers, argued Components of the Age-Stereotype Paradox in 1978 that the prevalent cultural view of old age “as Age-stereotype valence is consequential because, consistent a disastrous disease, which nobody wants to admit to with stereotype embodiment theory (Levy, 2009), these ste- having” should be eliminated and replaced with an reotypes, which are assimilated from a variety of sources in image of old age as a time of “strength” (Dychtwald, the surrounding culture, impact younger individuals’ per- 2012). Yet, recent studies suggest that in the subsequent ceptions of and behaviors toward older individuals (Jarrott decades, age stereotypes (or beliefs about old people as & Savla, 2016; Kornadt, Voss, & Rothermund, 2015; a category) have become more negative (Mason, Kuntz, Kwong See, Rasmussen, & Pertman, 2012); and in later & Mcgill, 2015; Ng, Allore, Trentalange, Monin, & life, the age stereotypes can impact self-perceptions, which, Levy, 2015). This trend contributes to what could be in turn, can influence health and functioning (e.g., Levy, called an “age-stereotype paradox.” Two contradictory 2009; Westerhof et al., 2014). Compared to older individu- elements comprise this paradox: the increase in age-ste- als with more-negative age stereotypes, those with more- reotype negativity versus an increase in age-stereotype positive age stereotypes tend to experience better cognitive positivity that a number of factors suggest should be functioning, reduced risk of and cardiovascular occurring. events, less accumulation of Alzheimer’s disease biomark- The first part of this article presents delineations of the ers, lower stress response, and increased longevity (Levy, two age-stereotype paradox components. The second part 1996; Levy, Hausdorff, Hencke, & Wei, 2000; Levy, Slade, examines the age-stereotype paradox in relation to four Kunkel, & Kasl, 2002; Levy, Slade, Murphy, & Gill, 2012; domains. The third part proposes strategies for revers- Levy, Zonderman, Slade, & Ferrucci, 2009; Levy et al., ing the age-stereotype negativity trend that underlies the 2016). This pattern of age stereotypes impacting older paradox. individuals in ways that are consistent with the valence of

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. S118 For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. The Gerontologist, 2017, Vol. 57, No. S2 S119 the stereotypes has been supported by studies conducted These computer-based analyses of age stereotypes har- on five continents and reported in four meta-analyses (e.g., monize with the findings of several historians who found Horton, Baker, Pearce, & Deakin, 2008; Lamont, Swift, & that views toward older individuals increased in negativity Abrams, 2015; Meisner, 2012; Westerhof et al., 2014). from colonial America, when older individuals tended to be integrated into daily life and honored, to subsequent times when older individuals tended to be disparaged and seg- Potential Contributors to Age-Stereotype regated (Achenbaum, 1995; Chudacoff, 1989; Cole, 1992; Positivity Over Time Fischer, 1978). Historic manifestations of reduced age-ste- If someone had been briefed 100 years ago about future reotype positivity can be found in fashions that changed age-related trends in American society, this person might from making younger people look older to ones that made well have predicted that age stereotypes would become older people look younger, and the elimination of seating more positive over time. Four trends, that will be exam- arrangements in meeting halls that gave prime reserved ined in the current article, could lead to this conclusion: (a) places to older members of the community, regardless of steadily improving health of older individuals, which belies their financial standing (Cole, 1992; Fischer, 1978). negative age stereotypes; (b) growing percentage of the population that is old, so that there could be more inter- group contact which can break down negative stereotypes; Four Age-Stereotype Paradox Domains (c) the passage of legislation that promotes a positive image In order to illustrate the age-stereotype paradox, the next of aging; and (d) increasingly positive views of several pre- section of the article presents its operation in four domains. viously stigmatized groups. For each domain, the theoretical and empirical bases for expecting a trend of age-stereotype positivity is followed by a discussion of the factors that contribute to the actual trend Evidence Age Stereotypes Becoming More of age-stereotype negativity. The four domains selected are Negative those that help shape the status of older individuals in soci- To examine the pattern of age-stereotype valence over ety. The domains consist of health, intergroup contact, leg- time, two independent groups of researchers, using recently islation, and social climate. developed methods based on computerized searches of dig- itized verbal documents, found that age stereotypes have increased in negativity across 200 years (Mason, Kuntz, Age-Stereotype Paradox Domain 1: Health & Mcgill, 2015; Ng, Allore, Trentalange, Monin, & Levy, Theory and research suggest that if the health of older indi- 2015). Because both studies included material that was viduals markedly improves over time, it should increase the widely read by the public, the identified age stereotypes positivity of age stereotypes. Observing individuals in eve- were likely to have affected age-stereotype usage as well as ryday life influences the content of stereotypes, according have reflected the popular stereotypes. to social role theory (Koenig & Eagly, 2014). Experimental The first study examined age stereotypes over time by research has found that exposure to positive exemplars, analyzing the Corpus of Historical American English, a including physically and socially active older individuals, database of over 400 million words that draws from books, can decrease age-stereotype negativity and increase age- magazines, newspapers, and academic journals published stereotype positivity (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001; Levy, between 1810 and 2009 (Davies, 2010). The authors iden- Pilver, Chung, & Slade, 2014). Further, improved health tified and rated 100 collocates, or words that appeared should serve as a refutation of negative age stereotypes, most frequently with the word “elderly” and its synonyms which are predominantly based on the assumption that bad drawn from historical thesauri (Ng et al., 2015). The age health is inherent to aging (Levy, 2003). stereotypes were in the positive section of a continuum Therefore, greater age-stereotype positivity might be during the first 80 years studied; afterwards, they became expected from the trend of improved aging health. In increasingly negative. the last 100 years, there has been a growing “active life The second study, that also found a trend of increasing expectancy,” which has led to the aging population being age-stereotype negativity, relied on a content-analysis tool, “increasingly represented by vigorous robust older people” Google Books Ngram Viewer, that determines the frequency (Butler, 2010, p. 12). Improvements in the health of older of words drawn from over five-million digitized books that individuals over the last century include a decrease in the were published in English from 1800 to 2000 (Michel et al., rates of disability, hip fracture, dementia, visual problems, 2011). The authors tracked the usage of terms and adjec- arthritis, emphysema, and heart disease, as well as declines tives describing the old. They concluded that the analyses in cholesterol level, and blood pressure (Kolata, 2016; “revealed a shift from more positive to less positive terms” Satizabal et al., 2016; Schoeni et al., 2008). (Mason et al., 2015, p. 324). For example, it was found Despite the objective reality of aging health moving in a that “geezers,” from its first appearance in 1900, became 11 positive direction, the subjective reality of age stereotypes times more frequent over the next 100 years. is moving in a negative direction. The discordance may S120 The Gerontologist, 2 0 1 7, Vol. 57, No. S2 be explained in part by the multi-billion-dollar anti-aging institutional, and cultural separation of persons who are in industry. This collection of companies, that sells creams, different phases of the life course” (Hagestad & Uhlenberg, injections, surgeries, and pills that falsely claim to reverse 2005, p. 345). For instance, in 1850, 70% of older indi- aging, profits from promoting a negative view of aging viduals in the United States lived with their adult children (Binstock, 2003; Gendron, Welleford, Inker, & White, and 11% lived with only a spouse or lived alone; by 1990, 2016; Perls, 2004). An analysis of this ubiquitous market- 16% of older individuals lived with their adult children and ing found that there is a pattern of: 70% lived with only a spouse or alone (Ruggles & Brower, 2003). the industry’s pernicious and false portrayal of older Contributing to age segregation is the societal percep- people. The hucksters’ sensationalized images of older tion that it is beneficial to separate older individuals from people as withering and frail individuals staring at nurs- younger individuals, which is signaled by examples of this ing home walls reinforce our youth-oriented society’s segregation in everyday life. In contrast, other types of seg- inaccurate and -engendering perceptions of aging. regation, such as racial, tend to be considered harmful by Anti-aging has become synonymous with anti-old peo- scholars, policy makers, and the general public (Hagestad & ple. (Perls, 2004, p. 686) Uhlenberg, 2005). This is in spite of the fact that age seg- One of the industry’s advertisements stated that its product regation can reinforce ageism, which can reinforce the seg- is the “Good Housekeeping Anti-Aging Gold Winner,” and regation (Griffore & Phenice, 2015; Riley & Riley, 2000). it can “help with the battles against the 5 signs of aging Concurrent with the increasing age segregation, the hair” (Vermont Country Store Catalogue, 2015, p. 21). increasing percentage of older individuals has been por- This promotes stigmatization by placing alleged attributes trayed in a way that has likely contributed to the rise in of the old in a category against which it is necessary to age-stereotype negativity. This has occurred through the conduct “battles.” emergence of a stereotype about the old as drainers of scarce The rapid growth of the anti-aging industry has been resources (Löckenhoff et al., 2009). A number of media assisted by marketers using the expanding internet to outlets have contributed to this negative age stereotype reach not only older individuals, but also prospective by stoking the scarce-resource fear. For instance, Forbes customers in their 20s and 30s, with promises that their featured an article entitled, “A Silver Tsunami Invades the products will allow them to resist aging (Binstock, 2003; Health of Nations” (Das, 2011). It used this natural disas- Gendron et al., 2016). ter term to describe a perceived threat by the old to health- In both old and new media, negative stereotypes about care systems that also serve the young; a Google search of aging health are fostered by contrasting them to positive ste- “silver” or “gray tsunami” produced 3,250,000 references reotypes about youthfulness. To illustrate, human-growth (January, 2017). hormone, a profitable elixir of the anti-aging industry, was Pitting age groups against each other is built on a false advertised, in a recent issue of a magazine affiliated with dichotomy, because health care for one of these groups the United States government, for anyone who “doesn’t does not jeopardize health care for other groups (Butler, want to age rapidly but would rather stay young, beautiful 2010). Also, in contrast to the drainer stereotype, it has and healthy all of the time” (Smithsonian, 2016, p. 105). been shown that older individuals tend to oppose govern- mental programs aimed at primarily benefiting their own age group (Levy & Schlesinger, 2005). Age-Stereotype Paradox Domain 2: Age segregation has been a loss for both those who are Intergenerational Contact old and those who are not, because “At a time when large According to intergroup contact theory, more contact numbers of people reaching old age are healthy and edu- between members of a stigmatized group and a nonstigma- cated, structural lag in the major social institutions deny tized group will lead to more positive views of the stigmatized the old opportunities for productive engagement in the group (Al Ramiah & Hewstone, 2013). A meta-analysis larger society” (Hagestad & Uhlenberg, 2005, p. 347). supporting intergroup contact theory found that even “mere exposure” led to a reduction in ; the effects were found with a broad range of out-group targets, including Age-Stereotype Paradox Domain 3: Legislation older individuals (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006, p. 766). Thus, It has been proposed that one way to increase the posi- with the percentage of older individuals steadily increasing tivity of stereotypes about a group is through legislation over the last century (Vaupel, 2010), there should be more aimed at improving how members of that group are treated opportunities available for intergenerational contact, which (Hatzenbuehler, 2014; Meyer, 2003). The ability of laws to should lead to more-positive age stereotypes. change opinions was shown by a study that found physi- A reason that the percentage increase of older individu- cians’ support for Medicare increased from 38% before the als is not leading to more-positive age stereotypes may be passage of legislation establishing this program for older that rather than intergenerational contact increasing during patients to 70% 10 months after it was passed but before the last century, there has been an increase in the “spatial, it was implemented, and then to 81% 6 months after the The Gerontologist, 2017, Vol. 57, No. S2 S121 law was implemented (Colombotos, 1969). Laws can also Age-Stereotype Paradox Domain 4: Social lead to improved views about minority-group members: for Climate instance, desegregation resulted in white merchant marines’ A survey covering the past 100 years concluded that a views of Blacks becoming more positive as their number of “Humanitarian Revolution” has occurred, in which nega- voyages together increased (Brophy, 1946). tive stereotypes about disempowered groups have become To address forms of ageism that developed in the United more positive because of a decline in the “dehumanizing States during the twentieth century (i.e., upper-age limits and demonization of minority groups” that “transformed in hiring and mandatory retirement), Congress enacted the Western culture” (Pinker, 2012, pp. 168, 392). Given the Age in Employment Act of 1967, which sweep of this reported transformation, it should presum- was expanded with an amendment in 1986 to abolish ably include age stereotypes. mandatory retirement (Neumark, Burn, & Button, 2015; An increase over time in stereotype positivity directed United States Department of Labor, 1965). The octogenar- at stigmatized groups was shown by the Princeton trilogy ian United States Senator Claude Pepper, who acted as the studies (Gilbert, 1951; Karlins, Coffman, & Walters, 1969; catalyst for this legislation, argued that “abolishing age Katz & Braly, 1933) and a replication study (Madon et al., discrimination will offer new hope to older workers who 2001), which measured the views held by four generations are desperate to maintain their independence and dignity” of college students. For example, from 1933 to 2001, the (Noble, 1986). percentage of students that described African Americans as It might be expected that more positive perceptions “ignorant” fell from 38% to 3.5% (Madon et al., 2001). of older workers would result from this legislation Another analysis concluded that during the period from aimed at improving their treatment in the workplace. World War II to the mid-1960s, stereotypes of Japanese For the law challenges the negative age stereotype that Americans underwent an “astounding transformation from older individuals have lower worth and are, therefore, being legally considered unassimilable aliens unfit for citi- not entitled to the same rights as younger individu- zenship to being accepted as highly successful law-abiding als (Neumark et al., 2015). Also, the law might have and patriotic Americans” (Okamura, 2015, p. 179). increased opportunities for older workers to display The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community capabilities, which, according to research findings, con- is the stigmatized group that has most recently achieved tradict negative age stereotypes. Among these findings: a significant increase in acceptance (Ghaziani, 2015; older workers tend to be as or more productive than Hatzenbuehler, Keyes, & Hasin, 2009; Savin-Williams, younger workers and tend to be as comfortable with 2005). This acceptance can be gauged by several indica- using technology in the workplace as younger work- tors, such as the waning of “gayborhoods” that developed ers (Börsch-Supan, 2013; Cutler, 2005; DeNisco, 2016; between World War II and 1998 as safe havens from nega- James, Besen, & Pitt-Catsouphes, 2011). tive stereotypes and other aspects of (Ghaziani, In actuality, negative age stereotypes and age discrimi- 2015); a marked decrease in the average age of coming out nation continue to prosper in workplaces. A survey, con- for gay and lesbian young adults (Savin-Williams, 2005); ducted in 2014, found that two-thirds of the respondents the growing number of publicly self-identified gay and had observed ageism in the workplace and, of those, 92% lesbian prominent people in a range of spheres, including reported it is very or somewhat common (FitzPatrick, 2014). television, business, web series, and politics (McCormack, The stereotypes that older workers are less productive and 2012); the legalization of same-sex marriage; and the less comfortable with technology are still commonly held by removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric employers (Börsch-Supan, 2013; DeNisco, 2016). Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental There are several reasons why the age-discrimination Disorders. laws have not eliminated ageism, and the accompanying Yet, the “Humanitarian Revolution” has excluded the negative age stereotypes, in the workplace: (a) inadequate old. For rather than leading to a universal amelioration of enforcement of the relevant laws (Neumark, 2009); (b) negative stereotypes, the Revolution has been confined to workers may not file complaints because the process is specific groups. complicated as well as expensive and, when they are filed, Further, instead of benefitting from the climate of only a small fraction of the cases make it to trial (Lahey, demarginalization, older individuals may have been penal- 2008; Neumark et al., 2015); (c) companies are less likely ized by it. That is, a zero-sum dynamic of stigmatization to hire older workers knowing that they are protected by may be operating, such that the same core level of preju- laws (Lahey, 2008); (d) the laws may have precipitated a dice is maintained by society over time, no matter how it partial shift of ageism from the blatant to the subtle; and (e) is distributed (Reich, 2016). An unwillingness, or inabil- research has demonstrated that coercion without persua- ity, of the dominant in-group (e.g., the young) to forsake sion, or passing laws aimed at changing harmful behaviors all prejudice may be partially explained by its benefiting without complementary education, rarely leads to lasting from the maintenance of subordinate out-groups (e.g., the change in beliefs and behaviors (Colgrove, 2006; Schudson, old): “Positive social identity is based to a large extent on 1993). S122 The Gerontologist, 2 0 1 7, Vol. 57, No. S2 favorable comparisons that can be made between the in- the one applied to the drug czar: ageism and negative age group and some relevant out-groups: the in-group must be stereotypes impose a heavy social and economic burden on perceived as positively differentiated or distinct from the the United States. relevant out-groups” (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Given this The anti-ageism czar could address problems described role of comparisons, as the stigmatization directed at an previously in this article that contribute to negative age out-group diminishes, it could lead to the development of stereotypes by seeking to: (a) enable the Federal Trade what might be called “compensatory animus.” This might Commission to prosecute the anti-aging industry for be achieved by finding a new group to stigmatize or by its false advertising based on negative age stereotypes; more intensely stigmatizing an existing group, such as the (b) facilitate contacts between age groups by stipulat- old. Not only a psychological benefit may be at stake, for ing that housing complexes using federal funding must social stratification theory postulates that dominant group have an intergenerational component; and (c) help pre- members create social structures in order to maintain their vent subtle discriminatory practices in hiring by having power (Bengston, 2016; Parsons, 1940). the Department of Labor provide bonuses to companies Negative stereotypes about the old may have a particu- that hire older workers for a specified number of years. lar likelihood of persistence because they often refer to As an example of other favorable actions the czar could cognitive and physical debilitation, which tends to be per- take: because age stereotypes are first assimilated in ceived as a precursor to death, with a culture-based sense childhood (e.g., Kwong See et al., 2012; Levy, 2009), the of foreboding (Becker, 1997; Levy & Banaji, 2004; Nelson, Department of Education could be required to expand 2005). This perception is likely to be amplified by the rec- its Core Curriculum, covering kindergarten through high ognition that negative age stereotypes could describe one’s school, to include readings that provide positive depic- future: the young will eventually become old, if they live tions of the old. long enough—an expectation that may have increased over In tandem with potential efforts by the anti-ageism the years with longer life spans. Consequently, negative age czar to counteract negative age stereotypes, a bottom-up stereotypes may fill a felt need by younger individuals to approach is needed in the form of a social movement. This distance themselves from older individuals. aging-rights movement could usefully adopt strategies of The old are also distinct from various previously stig- social movements that have gained rights for other groups. matized groups by never having been organized into a It would require three stages: collective identification, widespread social movement. These other groups have mobilization, and confrontation. used the movements to achieve, in varying degrees, more- The goal of the collective-identification stage would be positive stereotypes about their members. The potential to instill “cognitive liberation,” which occurs when individ- benefits accruing to older individuals launching their own uals move from accepting the conditions of stigmatization social movement are discussed in the next section of this to challenging them (McAdam, 1982). An effective way of article. achieving this state is through pinpointing grievances. In the past, articulating grievances has been pivotal for social movements, including the women’s-rights movement, Eliminating the Age-Stereotype Paradox which began with the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments, a The optimum means of overcoming the negativity com- list of grievances, that set the stage for the campaign to win ponent of the age-stereotype paradox would be through a their right to vote (Faulkner, 2016), and the disability-rights combination of two approaches: top-down (i.e., from soci- movement that began its campaign for fair treatment with ety to the individual) and bottom-up (i.e., from the indi- grievances that included the negative stereotypes directed vidual to society). at disabled individuals (Grue, 2016). The top-down approach could be spearheaded by an Grievances of the aging-rights movement could be gath- anti-ageism czar. This would be equivalent to what is unof- ered through personal narratives presented by older indi- ficially called the “drug czar.” Instead of a war on drugs, viduals on the internet about everyday encounters with the proposed czar would conduct a war on ageism in gen- negative age stereotypes and ageism. The narrative has eral and negative age stereotypes in particular. The official been shown to provide a means by which “people come title of the drug czar is director of the White House Office to see themselves as a group with stakes in protest”; con- of National Drug Control Policy. Thus, the new position sequently, narratives can act as “collective action frames” could be called “director of the White House Office of (Polletta & Gardner, 2015, pp. 535, 596). National Ageism Control Policy.” In addition to narratives, the grievances could be The appropriate mandate of the anti-ageism czar would strengthened by presenting relevant research findings in an be to initiate policies within the Executive branch and to accessible way. Specifically, these findings could include evi- lobby Congress for legislation that, in both cases, coun- dence of the psychological, physical, and economic damage teract negative age stereotypes and their manifestation in that can be caused by negative age stereotypes and ageism ageism. Creation of the anti-ageism czar could be politi- (e.g., Butler, 2010; Levy, 2009; Levy et al., 2016; Palmore, cally feasible, because the rationale for it is comparable to 2016). The Gerontologist, 2017, Vol. 57, No. S2 S123

Mobilization, the goal of the second stage of the aging- could entail an expansion of the “dance-flash mobs” that rights movement, would entail training a network of leaders have infrequently appeared in public spaces with partici- to bring the message (i.e., both the grievances and the social- pants ranging in age from the teens through the eight- change aims) of the aging-rights movement to the largest ies, in order to create a dance performance that “shatters possible audience. A successful approach to dissemination commonly held stereotypes about aging” (Marsh, 2014). was demonstrated by the Highlander Folk School, an activ- It would be advantageous to include the young in the ist training center that was established in the Appalachian confrontation stage of the movement in order to demon- Mountains by Myles Horton. It drew on grievances to mobi- strate that its goals have broad support and to increase lize leaders of the civil rights movement, among them Rosa the likelihood that they will be implemented. Nonetheless, Parks, who attended the Highlander Folk School four months it would be appropriate for older individuals to hold the before she launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott by refus- leadership positions, so that the movement remained ing to give up her bus seat to a white man (Morris, 1984). indigenous to the older community. In this way, the move- A guiding principle of Horton was that rather than ment would not only provide an opportunity to assert and impose an agenda on a social movement from outside the potentially achieve demands, the ability to organize could aggrieved group, the experiences of its members should help dispel the negative age stereotype of dependency, and inform its agenda (Morris, 1984). Accordingly, he explained replace it with an image of empowered older individuals. that “Not as individuals, but the group as a whole has much of the knowledge that they need to know to solve their problems. If they only knew how to analyze what their Conclusion experiences were, what they know, and generalize them... The age-stereotype paradox is a social construct; therefore, they would begin to draw on their own resources” (Morris, dismantling it will require a societal effort. This needs the 1984, p. 142). To operationalize this approach, Horton two-prong approach, with the joint goals of reinforcing considered it important for the social-change leaders who conditions that promote positive age stereotypes and atten- were trained at his School to return to their communities uating conditions that promote negative age stereotypes. to train other leaders (Tuckett, 2015). A network of cent- By adopting these goals, the top-down and bottom-up ers, each equivalent to the Highlander Folk School, could interventions proposed in this article could perhaps reverse potentially enable cadres of older individuals to energize the historic trend of increasing age-stereotype negativity. and expand participation in the aging-rights movement. At that point, there will no longer be a gap between the The third stage of the movement, confrontation, would expected and actual trends of age-stereotype positivity, so involve drawing on one of its greatest assets: the spending the paradox would vanish. and voting power of the older community. By concentrat- ing both the economic and electoral capacity of its partici- pants into blocks, the movement would have formidable Funding leverage. As an illustration, if the movement targeted the The preparation of this paper was supported by a grant from AARP. negative-age-stereotypical portrayal of older characters on This paper was published as part of a supplement sponsored and television (e.g, Donlon, Ashman, & Levy, 2005) and the funded by AARP. The statements and opinions expressed herein by presentation of these stereotypes on social media in ways the authors are for information, debate, and discussion, and do not that enter the realm of (e.g., Levy, Chung, necessarily represent official policies of AARP. Bedford, & Navrazhina, 2014), it could buttress these efforts with boycotts of advertisers. In a parallel project, References the voting blocks could be activated on behalf of political candidates supporting legislation that curtails the opera- Achenbaum, W. A. (1995). Images of old age in America, 1790– tion of negative age stereotypes and ageism. 1970. In M. Featherstone & A. 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