People are less likely to challenge racism from older people

Every December, jokes about going home and having to put up with the less-than-progressive views of older family members abound on social media. Whilst flippant, the humour speaks to a widely held belief: that older people are less flexible about changing their views than younger people, and that they are more likely to be conservative or express socially unjust sentiments. 

A new study, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, looks at belief in the malleability of opinions in older people. The team’s findings suggest that not only do such beliefs lead to a lower level of confrontation when older people espouse anti-Black prejudice, but that maintaining these ageist stereotypes could be impeding racial equality.

In the first study, participants read a vignette about a man, John, who was on a bus when a Black family boarded. When the family sat down, participants heard, John stood up and moved away from them. Participants, who were non-Black and aged between 18 to 60+, saw one of three images of John: some as a young man, some as a middle-aged man, and one as an old man. After reading the scenario, participants provided an open-ended response to the question “why do you believe John moved away?” and indicated how likely it was John had intended to offend the family. They also indicated how offensive they found the behaviour, how likely they would be to confront John, how much they would be worried about confronting him, and how likely he would be to change his basic characteristics. 

Participants found the middle-aged perpetrator more offensive than the older or younger adult. Younger participants were more likely than participants aged 35+ and 60+ to say John should be confronted, but hesitated more as John’s age increased, and were more likely to confront the younger John than his middle aged or older incarnations. The older John was also seen, across the board, as less malleable in his beliefs - perhaps suggesting why participants were less likely to confront him. 

The second study replicated the first, this time with a 42-, 62-, or 82-year-old John explicitly making a racist comment about the family. This time, participants also indicated how much they agree with statements such as “people John’s age just don’t know what behaviour is considered prejudiced anymore.” Participants in this study were again less likely to confront the oldest John, who was also considered to be less malleable by all age groups. This was even the case when comparing the 62- and 82-year-old Johns: the older man was seen as less aware of his bias, less intending to offend, and less beneficial to confront. A third study replicated these findings with a different gender, adding the detail that participants saw less of a risk in confronting women than men.

The final study focused closely on malleability. Participants read a vignette about John (either 42, 62, or 82 years old) leaving a checkout line at a supermarket when a Black cashier took over. They then completed the same measures on why they believed John had behaved that way, as well as the same measures on offensiveness, confrontation, perceived costs and benefits to confrontation, and malleability.

Again, participants were less likely to confront the man in his 80s than the man in his 60s or 40s. The 82 year old was also rated as less malleable, leading to fewer perceived benefits of confronting and less intention to actually confront. Overall, along with findings from the other studies, this suggests that stereotypes of older people being less flexible in their opinions can impact our ability to confront people when they express bigoted views.

One limitation is that participants in this study were all non-Black; this could certainly be looked at in further research, as Black participants may have a different reaction to racist comments. The team also notes that some studies provided a different form of discrimination, some more overt than others, representing another limitation. Finally, other forms of discrimination were avoided in this study, which other research could explore in more detail. 

Combined, these studies suggest that the beliefs we have about perpetrators of racist sentiments can also impact how we address such sentiments. If we believe older people are not able to change, or are unaware of their own biases and are not intentionally causing offence, we may be less likely to call out discrimination. Future research could explore other factors, as class, political orientation, and other facets of identity may also have roles to play.

Read the paper in full: https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igac059.1605