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This article was downloaded by: [Lund University Libraries]On: 29 October 2014, At: 01:44Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
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Anxiety, OutcomeExpectancies, and YoungPeople's Willingness to Engagein Contact with the ElderlyPaul Hutchison a , Edward Fox a , Anna Maria Laas a ,Jasmin Matharu a & Serena Urzi aa School of Psychology, London MetropolitanUniversity , London, United KingdomPublished online: 08 Sep 2010.
To cite this article: Paul Hutchison , Edward Fox , Anna Maria Laas , Jasmin Matharu& Serena Urzi (2010) Anxiety, Outcome Expectancies, and Young People's Willingnessto Engage in Contact with the Elderly, Educational Gerontology, 36:10-11, 1008-1021,DOI: 10.1080/03601271003723586
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03601271003723586
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ANXIETY, OUTCOME EXPECTANCIES, AND YOUNGPEOPLE’S WILLINGNESS TO ENGAGE IN CONTACTWITH THE ELDERLY
Paul HutchisonEdward Fox
Anna Maria LaasJasmin Matharu
Serena Urzi
School of Psychology, London Metropolitan University,London, United Kingdom
A cross-sectional study (N¼ 61) investigated the relationship betweenyoung people’s previous experiences of intergenerational contact and theirwillingness to engage in future contact with the elderly. Regressionanalyses confirmed that frequent positive intergenerational contactpredicted more positive outcome expectancies, less intergroup anxiety,and more willingness to engage in future contact with elderly people.Meditation analyses confirmed that outcome expectancies mediated theinfluence of contact on intergenerational anxiety, and intergenerationalanxiety, in turn, mediated the influence of both contact and outcomeexpectancies on willingness to engage in future contact with elderlypeople. Discussion focuses on the implications for strategies aimed atreducing ageism.
The developed world is currently experiencing a significant shifttoward greater numbers of older people relative to younger people,as average life expectancies continue to increase and birth ratesdecrease (Help the Aged, 2009). This historically unprecedented shiftis occurring against a background of research suggesting that ageismis the most common form of prejudice. In a recent survey conducted
Address correspondence to Paul Hutchison, School of Psychology, Faculty of Life
Sciences, London Metropolitan University, Calcutta House, Old Castle Street, London E1
7NT, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Educational Gerontology, 36: 1008–1021, 2010
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0360-1277 print=1521-0472 online
DOI: 10.1080/03601271003723586
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in the UK, 28% of respondents reported having been treated unfairlyin the last year because of their age, and more people reported havingexperienced ageism than discrimination based on gender, disability,religion, race or ethnicity, or sexual orientation (Ray, Sharp, &Abrams, 2006). This indicates an urgent need to understand andaddress ageist attitudes and behavior. In this article, we report find-ings from a cross-sectional study conducted with a student sample toinvestigate the relationship between young people’s previous experi-ences of intergenerational contact and their willingness to engage infuture contact with elderly people. Drawing on theory and researchon intergroup contact (Allport, 1954) and Plant and Devine’s(2003) work on the antecedents and implications of intergroup anxi-ety, we predicted that a lack of positive previous contact with elderlypeople will create negative expectancies among young people aboutthe outcome of intergenerational interactions. These negative expec-tancies were predicted to lead to anxiety about intergenerationalencounters, which, in turn, was expected to correlate negatively withwillingness to engage in future contact with elderly people.
REDUCING PREJUDICE THROUGH INTERGROUPCONTACT
One of the most enduring strategies for reducing prejudice andimproving intergroup relations is Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis.This holds that positive experiences with individual members of anoutgroup can reduce prejudice and pave the way for more harmoniousintergroup relations. Conversely, lack of contact or contact that is ofgenerally poor quality can result in negative attitudes based on unfa-vorable stereotypes (for a review, see Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). All-port argued that contact alone is not enough to reduce prejudiceand that at least four situational conditions must be met: the contactmust occur in a situation of equal status; the groups must havecommon goals; attainment of such goals must involve intergroupcooperation; and the initiative must have the support of relevantinstitutions and authorities.
Since its original formulation, an impressive body of research hasprovided support for the contact hypothesis while also highlightingthe importance of the proposed prerequisite conditions. A recentmeta-analysis of over 500 laboratory and field studies (Pettigrew &Tropp, 2006) demonstrated that even when the proposed prerequisiteconditions are not in place, contact reduces prejudice. However, con-tact occurring under optimal conditions—i.e., high quality contact
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(Schwartz & Simmons, 2001; Wittig & Grant-Thompson, 1998)—leads to an even greater reduction in prejudice.
Although the majority of research in the contact framework hasfocused on race relations, this has been extended in recent years toadditionally investigate attitudes toward other stigmatized and mar-ginalized groups, including the elderly. In one of the first such studies,Caspi (1984) demonstrated that schoolchildren who had daily contactwith elderly teaching aides expressed more positive attitudes towardolder people, compared to children who had no such contact. Similarresults were reported by Aday, Sims, and Evans (1991), who foundthat students who participated in a series of joint activities with seniorcitizens throughout the school year held more positive attitudestoward the aged than students in a control condition. Along similarlines, Hale (1998) found that both young and elderly respondentswho reported having more contact with older people also expressedmore knowledge about aging and were less likely to use age-basedstereotypes than those experiencing relatively low levels of contact.
The importance of investigating not only the amount or frequencyof contact between young and elderly individuals but also the qualityof the contact was demonstrated in a study by Schwartz and Simmons(2001). They found that contact quality positively predicted collegestudents’ attitudes towards the elderly, whereas contact frequencydid not (see also Bousfield & Hutchison, 2010; Knox, Gekoski, &Johnson, 1986). More recently, Allan and Johnson (2009) found thatstudents who interacted with elderly individuals several times a day atwork held more positive attitudes toward the elderly, whereas thosewho lived with one or more elderly relative had more ageist attitudes.The authors suggested that this may be attributed to differences in thequality of contact experienced at work compared to contact withelderly relatives at home; whereas contact at work is likely to takeplace with competent elderly individuals, young people living withelderly relatives are more likely to have experienced some of thenegative effects of aging. These studies support the idea that thequality of intergenerational contact—and not only the amount orfrequency of contact—is important in reducing ageist attitudes.
ANXIETY AND OUTCOME EXPECTANCIES
In recent years, research has moved beyond establishing whether thereis an association between contact and prejudice to additionally inves-tigating mediators of this relationship. One of the most commonlytested mediators is intergroup anxiety, which refers to the negative
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affective feeling that can arise during actual or anticipated intergroupencounters (Stephan & Stephan, 1985). Intergroup anxiety occurswhere there has been little or no previous contact with outgroup mem-bers, where there are large status differences between the groups, orwhere negative stereotypes exist (Brown & Hewstone, 2005; Stephan& Stephan, 1985). Several studies have demonstrated that intergroupanxiety is associated with various negative responses to outgroupmembers, such as negative attitudes and behavioral intentions (e.g.,Bousfield & Hutchison, 2010; Hutchison & Rosenthal, 2010; Islam& Hewstone, 1993). It has been shown to produce a narrowing ofattention and an increased reliance on stereotypes (e.g., Stephan &Stephan, 1985; Wilder & Shapiro, 1989) and can also lead people toavoid contact situations altogether (Plant & Devine, 2003). Followingpositive intergroup contact, however, anxiety tends to diminish asintergroup attitudes improve (e.g., Brown & Hewstone, 2005; Islam& Hewstone, 1993).
There is now considerable empirical support for the role of inter-group anxiety as a mediator between positive previous intergroupcontact and intergroup attitudes (for a review, see Pettigrew & Tropp,2008). Once again, however, the majority of research in this domainhas focused on groups defined by race or ethnicity. To our knowl-edge, only one previous study has tested the mediational role ofintergroup anxiety in the context of the young’s attitudes towardthe elderly. Bousfield and Hutchison (2010) found that variationsin intergenerational anxiety mediated the positive relationshipbetween high quality intergenerational contact and young people’sattitudes and behavioral intentions toward the elderly, whereas aginganxiety (i.e., anxiety about personally growing old) did not have amediational role.
One aim of the current research is to extend this previous work byexamining the role of intergenerational anxiety as a mediator betweenyoung people’s previous experiences of intergenerational contact andtheir willingness to engage in future contact with elderly people.Examining factors that influence young people’s willingness to engagein contact with the elderly is especially important in light of researchsuggesting that attitudes toward performing specific behaviors (e.g.,interacting with an outgroup member) are better predictors of actualbehavior than are global attitudes (e.g., evaluations of the outgroupas a whole; e.g., Sutton, 1998). Thus, while several previous studieshave demonstrated a link between positive intergenerational contactand more favorable attitudes toward the elderly, the need is for anaccompanying change in behavior if research is to have a positiveimpact on the lives of elderly people (Bousfield & Hutchison, 2010).
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Investigating the link between previous experiences of intergener-ational contact and young people’s willingness to engage in futurecontact with the elderly is an important step in this direction.
A second aim of the current research is to investigate the reasonwhy contact influences intergenerational anxiety. While numerousstudies underline the influence of intergroup contact on intergroupanxiety, few studies have considered why contact might influenceintergroup anxiety; none has done so in the context of relationsbetween the young and the elderly. The present research aimed toaddress this limitation by investigating the role of outcome expectan-cies as a potential mediator between intergenerational contact andintergenerational anxiety. In their model of the antecedents andimplications of intergroup anxiety, Plant and Devine (2003) arguedthat a lack of positive previous contact with outgroup memberscreates negative expectations about the outcome of intergroup inter-actions. Specifically, drawing on Schlenker and Leary’s (1982) workon social anxiety, these authors argued that individuals are oftenhighly motivated to make a favorable impression when interactingwith outgroup members. However, because people are likely to haveless experience interacting with outgroup members than with ingroupmembers, they are often unsure of what behaviors will be received wellby outgroup members and whether their actions will come across asinappropriate or prejudiced, which can result in negative expectanciesabout intergroup encounters. These negative expectancies are positedto create anxiety about possible intergroup encounters, which, asdescribed above, is known to predict various negative responses tooutgroup members such as avoidance and hostility.
Consistent with these ideas, previous research has demonstrated anassociation between interracial contact and outcome expectancies:more positive interracial contact predicts more positive expectanciesabout the outcome of interracial interactions (Plant & Devine,2003). Moreover, outcome expectancies have been shown to correlatewith more interracial anxiety, and interracial anxiety in turn predictsmore hostility and avoidance of racial outgroup members (Plant &Devine, 2003). The current research aimed to extend these lines ofresearch into the domain of ageism for the first time.
OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT RESEARCH
We conducted a cross-sectional study with a student sample to inves-tigate the relationship between young people’s previous experiencesof intergenerational contact and their willingness to engage in future
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contact with the elderly. Drawing on previous research on intergroupcontact (Allport, 1954) and Plant and Devine’s (2003) model of theantecedents and consequences of intergroup anxiety, we predictedthat a lack of previous positive intergenerational contact will createnegative expectancies among young people about the outcome ofintergenerational interactions. These negative expectancies were pre-dicted to lead to increased anxiety about intergenerational encoun-ters, and this anxiety in turn was expected to correlate negativelywith willingness to engage in future contact with elderly people. Toour knowledge, this is the first study to test these predictions in thecontext of relations between the young and the elderly.
METHOD
Participants
Participants were 61 students. Thirty-six were female and 25 weremale. Ages ranged from 18 to 25, with a mean age of 21.38 years(SD¼ 2.14). This age range is commonly used in research focusedon young people (e.g., Bousfield & Hutchison, 2010; ScottishGovernment, 2008).
Materials and Procedure
Students were invited to participate in a study on aging and theelderly. Those who agreed were handed a questionnaire containingall instructions and measures. It was explained to participants that‘‘contact’’ referred to time spent interacting with elderly people—e.g., at work, socially, in the neighborhood—and that the term‘‘elderly’’ referred to people aged 65 years or over. All items in thequestionnaire were adapted from measures used by Plant and Devine(2003) in their research on race relations. Participants rated the itemson a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).Items assessing each construct were averaged to create indices. Oncompletion of the questionnaire, participants received a debriefinformation sheet.
Contact Measures
Contact frequency was measured using three items: ‘‘In the past, Ihave rarely interacted with elderly people’’ (reverse scored), ‘‘In thepast I have interacted with elderly people in many areas of my life,’’
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and ‘‘The neighborhood(s) I grew up in had many elderly people’’(Cronbach’s a¼ .62). Contact quality was also measured using threeitems: ‘‘I have had many positive experiences with elderly people,’’‘‘Over the course of my life I have hadmany elderly people as friends,’’and ‘‘In the past, my experiences with elderly people have been plea-sant’’ (a¼ .68). Following the procedure adopted in previous contactstudies (e.g., Hutchison & Rosenthal, 2010; Voci & Hewstone, 2003),we calculated a multiplicative index of contact frequency and contactquality to obtain a single intergenerational contact score. A higherscore on this index indicates more frequent positive contact.
Intergenerational Anxiety Measure
This was measured using three items: ‘‘I would feel awkward wheninteracting with an elderly person’’, ‘‘When interacting with an elderlyperson, I would feel relaxed’’ (reverse scored), and ‘‘When interactingwith an elderly person, I would feel nervous’’ (a¼ .72). A higher scoreon this measure indicates more intergenerational anxiety.
Outcome Expectancies
Nine items measured outcome expectancies: e.g., ‘‘If I was interactingwith an elderly person, regardless of my behavior he or she wouldinterpret my behavior as prejudiced,’’ ‘‘When interacting with anelderly person, he or she would see me as prejudiced no matter whatI did,’’ ‘‘I am confident that I can respond without prejudice wheninteracting with an elderly person’’ (reverse scored), ‘‘Sometimeselderly people view the normal behavior of younger people as preju-diced,’’ ‘‘I am confident that stereotypes don’t affect how I interactwith an elderly person,’’ (reverse scored), ‘‘When interacting withan elderly person, I would know what to say in order to come acrossas non-prejudiced’’ (reverse scored), ‘‘Sometimes stereotypes come tomind when interacting with an elderly person, even when I wishedthey wouldn’t’, ‘Elderly people do not look for prejudice in youngerpeople’s behavior’ (reverse scored),’’ ‘‘When interacting with anelderly person, I would imagine that he or she would be watchingmy behavior closely’’ (a¼ .76). A higher score on this measure indi-cates more negative outcome expectancies.
Willingness to Engage in Future Contact
This was measured using four items: e.g., ‘‘I would want to avoidinteracting with an elderly person’’ (reverse scored), ‘‘If I had a choice
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I would rather not interact with an elderly person’’ (reverse scored),‘‘If I can avoid interacting with elderly people, I do’’ (reverse scored),‘‘I like interacting with elderly people’’ (a¼ .82). A higher score onthis measure indicates more willingness to engage in future contactwith elderly people.
RESULTS
Relationships between the variables were tested using regressionanalyses following procedures recommended by Baron and Kenny(1986) for testing for mediation. The analyses were conducted in threestages to test our specific hypotheses (following Plant &Devine, 2003).
In the first stage, we investigated the association between interge-nerational contact and outcome expectancies. The analysis confirmedthat frequent positive previous intergenerational contact was associa-ted with less negative outcome expectancies regarding interactionswith elderly people (b¼�.45, t[59]¼�3.84, p< .001).
In the second stage, we examined the influence of both inter-generational contact and outcome expectancies on intergenerationalanxiety. This confirmed that frequent positive previous contact wasassociated with less anxiety about interacting with elderly people(b¼�.47, t[59]¼�4.08, p< .001), whereas negative outcome expec-tancies were associated with more intergenerational anxiety (b¼ .59,t[59]¼ 5.94, p< .001). To test whether outcome expectancies mediatethe association between intergenerational contact and intergenera-tional anxiety, we entered intergenerational contact and outcomeexpectancies in the same model as predictors of intergenerationalanxiety, finding that the association between intergenerationalcontact and intergenerational anxiety was significantly reduced(b¼�.25, t[58]¼�2.19, p¼ .03). A Sobel (1982) test confirmed thatoutcome expectancies mediates the association between frequentpositive contact and intergenerational anxiety (z¼ 2.93, p¼ .003).When intergenerational contact and outcome expectancies were bothentered in the same model as predictors of intergenerational anxiety,the association between outcome expectancies and intergenerationalanxiety was also reduced (b¼ .50, t[58]¼ 4.51, p< .001), suggestingthat intergenerational contact may have mediated the associationbetween outcome expectancies and intergenerational anxiety. How-ever, a Sobel test confirmed that this reduction was only marginallysignificant (z¼ 1.89, p¼ .07).
In the third stage, we examined whether intergenerational anxietymediates the influence of intergenerational contact and outcome
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expectancies on young people’s willingness to engage in future contactwith the elderly. The regression analyses confirmed that frequent posi-tive intergenerational contact was associated with more willingness toengage in future contact with elderly people (b¼ .41, t[59]¼ 3.44,p¼ .001), whereas negative outcome expectancies (b¼�.39, t[59]¼�3.27, p¼ .002) and intergenerational anxiety (b¼�.63, t[59]¼�6.29, p< .001) were both associated with less willingness to engagein future contact with the elderly. When intergenerational contact,outcome expectancies and intergenerational anxiety were entered inthe same model as predictors of willingness to engage in futurecontact, intergenerational contact (b¼ .15, t[57]¼ 1.28, p¼ .21) andoutcome expectancies (b¼ .03, t[57]¼ 0.24, p¼ .81) were no longerreliable predictors, whereas intergenerational anxiety was (b¼�.58,t[57]¼�4.37, p< .001). A Sobel test confirmed that intergenerationalanxiety mediates the influence of both intergenerational contact andoutcome expectancies on young people’s willingness to engage infuture contact with the elderly (z¼ 2.98, p¼ .003).
DISCUSSION
The present research investigated the relationship between youngpeople’s previous experiences of intergenerational contact and theirwillingness to engage in future contact with the elderly. Drawing ontheorizing and research on intergroup contact (Allport, 1954) andPlant and Devine’s (2003) model of the antecedents and implicationsof intergroup anxiety, we predicted that young people’s previousexperiences of intergenerational contact would influence their expec-tancies regarding the outcome of intergenerational interactions.Consistent with this prediction, results confirmed that more frequentpositive intergenerational contact was associated with less negativeoutcome expectancies regarding interactions with elderly people. Wealso predicted that both intergenerational contact and outcome expec-tancies would influence the level of anxiety experienced by youngpeople about interacting with elderly people. Results also supportedthis prediction: intergenerational contact was associated with less anxi-ety about intergenerational interactions, whereas negative outcomeexpectancies were associated with more intergenerational anxiety.Moreover, replicating results reported by Plant and Devine (2003) intheir research on interracial contact, mediation analyses confirmed thatoutcome expectancies mediated the positive association between con-tact and anxiety: the more frequent positive previous contact experi-enced by the respondents in our study, the less negative were their
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expectancies regarding the outcome of intergenerational interactions,and the less anxious they were about interacting with elderly people.
We also predicted that more frequent positive previous contactwould be associated with more willingness on the part of young peopleto engage in future contact with the elderly. Consistent with thisprediction, intergenerational contact, outcome expectancies and inter-group anxiety were all associated with willingness to engage in futureintergenerational contact in the predicted directions. Specifically,more frequent positive intergenerational contact was positively asso-ciated with young people’s willingness to engage in future contact withthe elderly, whereas negative outcome expectancies and intergenera-tional anxiety were both negatively associated with willingness toengage in future contact. Moreover, mediation analyses confirmedthat variations in intergenerational anxiety mediated the influenceof previous intergenerational contact and outcome expectancies onyoung people’s willingness to engage in future contact with the elderly.
These findings support the idea that sustained contact and famili-arity between young and elderly individuals can reduce negative feel-ings and lay the ground for more harmonious intergroup relations(Allport, 1954; Pettigrew, 1998). The results are in line with previousresearch suggesting that the quality of intergenerational contact—and not only the amount or frequency of contact—is important inachieving these aims (e.g., Bousfield & Hutchison, 2010; Schwartz& Simmons, 2001). Perhaps most importantly, our data providefurther support for the role of intergroup anxiety as a mediator ofcontact effects, confirming that intergenerational anxiety mediatesthe relationship between frequent positive intergenerational contactand young people’s willingness to engage in future contact with theelderly. Although these relationships have been tested in previousresearch on race relations (Plant & Devine, 2003), the present studyis the first to demonstrate these effects in the context of relationsbetween the young and the elderly.
Although our results are in line with predictions, there are limita-tions with the present research that future research should seek toaddress. The first limitation concerns the cross-sectional design ofthe study. Such designs make it difficult to draw firm conclusionsabout causality. It is possible that those respondents in our study withinitially more favorable attitudes about engaging in contact with theelderly were more likely to seek out and engage in contact with olderpeople, rather than the reverse sequence as we have suggested.Indeed, it has been demonstrated in previous research that negativeattitudes can restrict intergroup contact at the same time contactimproves attitudes (e.g., Binder et al., 2009). It should be noted,
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however, that numerous laboratory and field studies have reportedfindings in line with our own, although not in the context of ageism(for reviews, see Brown & Hewstone, 2005; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006,2008). Nevertheless, future research on ageism should use longitudi-nal and experimental designs to allow more conclusive inferences tobe made about the relationships between the variables investigatedin the current study.
Another limitation concerns the sample used in the presentresearch. The study was conducted with a student sample and it ispossible that students may have different experiences of contact withelderly people than nonstudents, especially because students are likelyto come into contact with competent elderly individuals (e.g., profes-sors) on a regular basis. It is, possible therefore, that students andnonstudent samples may differ in terms of the quality of contact theyexperience with older people as well as in terms of their attitudestoward the elderly and their expectancies regarding the outcome ofintergenerational interactions. Future research should, therefore, beextended to also include nonstudent samples.
It should also be noted that the elderly are not a homogenousgroup, and previous research suggests that many different representa-tions of elderly people exist (e.g., Cuddy, Norton, & Fiske, 2005;Gold, Arbuckle, & Andres, 1994; Nuessel, 1982; Schmidt & Boland,1986). In the present research, we may have unwittingly led parti-cipants to perceive elderly people as a homogeneous entity. With thisin mind, in future work it would be desirable to investigate theattitudes of young respondents toward elderly people in the varietyof contexts in which intergenerational contact may occur (e.g., in carehomes, in the family, and in educational or occupational contexts).This could provide a more accurate picture of young people’s percep-tions of and attitudes toward the elderly and also of the relationshipsbetween the variables examined in the present study.
Future research should also investigate other potential mediatorsof the relationships examined in the present research. The presentresearch tested two mediated relationships, finding that outcomeexpectancies mediates the influence of contact on intergenerationalanxiety, and intergenerational anxiety in turn mediates the influenceof both contact and outcome expectancies on young people’swillingness to engage in future contact with the elderly. However, theintergroup relations and prejudice literatures suggests that there maybe additional mediators of the effect of contact worthy of investigationin the context of relations between the young and the elderly. Com-monly tested mediators in the intergroup relations literature that mayusefully be extended into the domain of ageism include self-disclosure
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(Turner, Hewstone, & Voci, 2007) and empathy and perspective taking(Tam, Hewstone, Harwood, Voci, & Kenworthy, 2006). Both thesevariables have previously been shown to mediate between intergroupcontact and a host of outcome measures, and further research shouldbe conducted to investigate their role as potential mediators in thecontext of contact between the young and the elderly.
CONCLUSION
Previous research has highlighted the importance of intergroupanxiety in determining people’s attitudes and behavior toward out-group members (e.g., Plant & Devine, 2003). The present researchadds further support to this idea and additionally suggests how inter-generational anxiety might be reduced and relations between theyoung and the elderly improved. The findings suggest that strategiesand interventions aimed at providing young people with positiveexperiences with older individuals may help them to develop morepositive expectancies regarding the outcome of intergenerationalinteractions. This might involve providing young people with elderlymentors in educational settings or organizing structured work experi-ence programs in which young people work alongside competentelderly individuals toward the achievement of common goals. Ourresearch suggests that strategies of this type may go some way towardreducing the anxiety that young people often experience during actualor anticipated intergenerational interactions. Reduced anxiety, inturn, can pave the way for more positive and constructive relationsbetween the young and the elderly.
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