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Social Distance and Intergenerational Relations1 Questionnaires were administered to a sample of adults to assess the extent of social distance be- tween people of different ages. The findings suggest that the greater the age difference (younger or older) between people, the greater the social distance they feel. Moreover, people appear to feel more socially distant from the elderly, regardless of their own age. The source of estrangement seems to be the amount of contact with people of different ages: the less the contact, the greater the social distance. Social Distance and Intergenerational Relations1 I.JaneKidwell,MA,2 and Alan Booth. PhD2 The concept of social distance has been studied with his scale (1933). His well-known used extensively over the past 50 years to social distance measure was constructed us- study racial, religious, and ethnic intergroup ing the Thurstone technique. The scale con- sisted of the following items: relations. We believe the social distance con- Downloaded from cept can also add significantly to our under- standing of intergenerational relations. The (1) Would marry purpose of this study is to: (1) construct a (2) Would have as regular friends scale to assess social distance between age (3) Would work beside in an office gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org groups, similar to the one Bogardus used to (4) Would have several families in my neigh- study attitudes between racial and ethnic borhood (5) Would have merely as speaking acquaintances groups; (2) assess the extent of social distance (6) Would have live outside my neighborhood, and between different age groups, and (3) under- (7) Would have live outside my country. stand the role that age segregation has in ex- plaining social distance. The scale has been widely used to assess at New York University on September 30, 2011 social distance, and the studies have added Social Distance significantly to our understanding of inter- The concept of social distance was first de- group relations. While Bogardus' own scale is veloped in the mid-1920s. Although Emory S. seldom used today, scales building on his Bogardus, its first methodological developer, work have influenced research on status dif- is most commonly linked with the beginnings ferential (Westie & Howard, 1954), and the of work on social distance, Robert E. Park acceptance of immigrants into American (1924) actually preceded Bogardus with his society (Duncan & Lieberson, 1959), as well discussion of social distance: as research on grade and sex stratification in the high school community (Langworthy, The concept of "distance" as applied to human, 1959). One of the most frequent uses has as distinguished from spatial relations, has come been to study racial prejudice as Defleur and into use among sociologists, in an attempt to re- Westie (1959) and many others have done. duce to something like measurable terms the They have found that social distance is a pro- grades and degrees of understanding and intimacy which characterize personal and social relations ductive means for understanding intergroup generally. relations. Bogardus took Park's concept of social dis- Application of Social Distance to Age Groups tance and developed a scale for its assess- Studies suggest that it is reasonable to ment. Racial, religious, and occupational dis- assume that the relationship between age tance were the primary subjects Bogardus groups is characterized by social distance. In- dications of social distance revealed by prior research include: perceptual barriers to inter- 'We are indebted to Susan Welch and Nicholas Babchuk, Univ. of action between age groups; age categories Nebraska, who provided useful comments on an earlier version of this paper, which was presented at The Life Cycle: Aging session of the 1977 American relegated to the status of a minority group, Sociological Assn. meetings in Chicago. Reprint requests to A. Booth. 'Department of Sociology, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588. and extensive age group stereotyping. 412 The Gerontologist Barriers to Interaction Between Age Groups groups. The authors concluded that such per- Golde and Kogan (1959) administered to ceptual barriers will interfere with effective college undergraduates a sentence comple- inter-generational communication. tion questionnaire that was designed to assess attitudes toward old people. They found that these young people were hesitant about hav- Age Croups as Minorities ing interpersonal relationships with old peo- Friedenberg (1966) and Holt (1974) infer ple. that young people qualify for the status of minority; others say this is an accurate de- scription of old people. The latter is the impli- Little mention is made of reciprocity, sponta- cation of research by Kogan and Wallach neity, warmth, desire to initiate conversation, or (1961), where they found that unfavorable at- other qualities that comprise the essential ingre- titudes toward old people were associated dients of friendly contacts between peers. with negative dispositions toward ethnic minorities as well as a variety of physically The young subjects attributed polar oppo- disabled groups. site qualities such as serenity and irritability Kogan and Wallach claim their results offer to old people, indicating ambiguous feelings support to a minority group theory of aging. on the part of the former toward the latter. They found that their sample of older persons They also indicated that they felt old people evaluated "Negro" and "foreigner" more Downloaded from resented young people. positively than the college-aged sample.. Kogan and Shelton (1962) administered the Since members of racial and religious minori- same test, this time to a group of older re- ties have been shown to exhibit less prejudice spondents as well as the college under- against other minorities (Allport, 1954;Trian- gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org graduates. The greatest difference between dis & Triandis, 1960), Kogan and Wallach the young and old samples seems to occur for claim that it is reasonable to infer that old those item pairs where a personal relationship people also constitute a minority group be- with a specific other is implied (for example, cause old people share this sentiment. "When I am with an older person, I . .", Kogan and Shelton (1962) feel that "while "Most of the old people I have known . .", underlying sentiments may be less ex- at New York University on September 30, 2011 and "When an old person I do not know sits treme . the dynamics of beliefs about old down next to me on a train or bus, I . ."). people are sufficiently similar to the ethnic They conclude: prejudice case to warrant discussion in a minority group context." They suggest . the age differences observed in images and Drake's (1958) label of "quasi-minority" is beliefs regarding "old people" are often suggestive most appropriate. Barron's (1953) results sup- of ambivalence, conflict, and inaccurate percep- port a minority group theory of aging. Older tion between generations. Younger individuals, subjects seem to anticipate the feelings of the perceiving that older persons resent them, attempt dominant majority of younger subjects, at- to avoid interpersonal contact and partially justify tempting to cope with them and trying to such avoidance by suggesting that older individ- avoid rejection by emphasizing certain uals are really more interested in their families and characteristics and values while suppressing are preoccupied with death. The belief that "old others. people" are in need of assistance has a patronizing flavor in the present context, but such a belief may serve to assauge guilt feelings deriving from Stereotyping of Age Croups neglect of old people's emotional requirements. If a widespread stereotype is indicative of a minority status for a group, age groups again Knapp and Jackson (1963) compared the qualify. There is ample evidence that the responses to a semantic differential test given majority of people subscribe to stereotypes to a group of young respondents for an old about old people. Not only has it been that stimulus group ("old-attributed") and the re- lay people subscribe to stereotypes about the sponses given by an old group with them- old, but even professionals who work with the selves as the stimulus group ("old-direct"). aged score high on the stereotype scale (Arn- The old-attributed responses were more nega- hoff & Lorge, 1960; Tuckman & Lorge, 1956). tive than the old-direct, illustrating a lack of However, since there has been no complimen- understanding between the young and old tary research focus on stereotypes of other Vol.17, No. 5,1977 413 age groups, no valid assumptions can be other hand, we would expect individuals made as to whether or not stereotypes exist growing up in a home that included grand- for other age groups. parents, other adult relatives or boarders, or On the basis of past research it is very diffi- who have such persons in their adult home, to cult, if not impossible, to know exactly what be less constrained about developing inti- is the nature of the relationship between all mate interage relations and as a consequence age groups. As late as 1972, Ahammer and feel less age-related social distance. Simi- Baltes were able to claim themselves to be larly, people who are successful in develop- the first to systematically vary the age of both ing close ties with people in other age cate- the perceiving and the perceived groups in gories at work, in the neighborhood, or with their research. When doing this, they found relatives not in the home are less likely to de- misconceptions existed between all three age velop feelings of social distance with respect groups they tested —adolescents, middle- to individuals different from themselves in aged, and old people. Aaronson (1966) shows age. Thus, our second hypothesis is that in- three distinctly different stereotypes across dividuals who have more extensive histories the life-span. The first is childhood (ages 5- of close interage relations feel less social dis- 25), then adulthood (ages 26-54), and finally tance with people in age categories different senescence (55-85).
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