Throughout this course we have learnt a great deal about aging and…

Mandymay7Throughout this course we have learnt a great deal about aging and…Throughout this course we have learnt a great deal about aging and the stereotypes that sometimes comes with aging. For example, many in today’s society are of the belief that memory decline is inevitable for everyone going through the aging process (Cavanaugh, 2023). As a society we can encourage positive age stereotyping and discourage negative stereotyping, by replacing the negative perceptions of aging with positive expectations. For example, we can say that age come with knowledge, wisdom and experience rather than the belief that age comes with memory decline. We can also learn to embrace the changes especially with the physical features that comes with aging, instead of labeling them as ugly. Studies have suggested that the reason stereotyping have been automatically activated is because they have become overlearned by society. Whenever we see older adults, we automatically believe that those individuals will behave in the expected stereotype we have of them. Whenever we automatically react to an individual in a certain manner because of their age, researchers call this act implicit stereotyping (Cavanaugh, 2023). Often times we are unaware that we are doing this, it becomes an automatic response.I have never had an experience with age stereotyping however, I have witness other individuals in my sphere who have been stereotyped because of their age. For example, I can remember on one occasion taking my grandmother to the doctor. The receptionist gave us some forms to fill out and her immediate reaction was to hand me the forms to fill out for her. She assumed she was feeble, had memory decline and had bad eye sight and was unable to see what was on the paper. My grandmother’s response was to ask the receptionist if I was the one seeing the doctor or her? And then ask if she had told her she wasn’t able to fill out her own papers. There was also another incident when an aunt of mine had a car accident. Even though the driver was wrong he came yelling and screaming at her, saying she should not have been driving and they should have had her drivers license revoked because he presumed she was too old to be driving. We can enhance the personal control experience for older adults by allowing them to be independent and ask for help instead of assuming they need help. We must also remember that being older does not mean that a person is incapable of doing things for themselves, rather we should realize that they have had more life experiences and possibly more knowledge than us as well, instead of assuming they have a decline in cognitive function.Social SciencePsychology