Implicit Biases Toward Aging-Related Stimuli Correspond With Anxiety About Aging and Ageism: Evidence From a Crowdsourced Go/No-Go Association Task

Abstract

There is a surprising lack of measures to assess ageism, particularly implicit measures designed to capture automatic associations. The central aim of this study was to establish the relationship between implicit and explicit measures of ageism and aging anxiety. We recruited 205 adults aged 18-67 years by crowdsourcing (M age = 37.5, SD age = 10.7; 45% cisgender women). Participants completed a go/no-go association task (GNAT) assessing negative bias for older-versus younger-related stimuli, as well as questionnaires on anxiety about aging, benevolent ageism, hostile ageism, and social desirability. Results showed greater negative implicit biases for aging-related stimuli than for younger-related stimuli. Anxiety about aging and benevolent ageism positively correlated with negative biases for aging-related stimuli. Hostile ageism was associated with increased negative bias against aging-related stimuli but was not significant when controlling for other measures. Further development of implicit and explicit measures is needed to understand age-related bias better.

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