The Effect Of Perspective Taking On The College Students’ Elderly Stereotype

In recent years, the aging has become one of the important social issues of common concern to the international community. With the social development and progress, people’s attitudes have also changed in the influence by the environment. China has so deep traditional virtues about a care for the young and old for a long time, and what is the contemporary college students’ attitudes about the old people? How is the result and mechanism of the perspective taking which as the measure influencing on the elderly stereotype?This paper takes the perspective taking as a means of intervention to explore the perspective taking can effectively influence of explicit and implicit age stereotype of old people and its mechanism, and this paper is divided into 3 research:The study1 mainly use questionnaire and vocabulary assessment method to investigate the 268 Hubei universities college students about the elderly age stereotypes. The research is divided into 2 parts:the firstly, through 106 questionnaires(102 copies of valid), the subjects were required to write at least 6 words to describes the current social impression of the elderly people, after the experts assessment, collect and find out 312 words to describe the contemporary college students’ impression about the elderly people; secondly, through the 162 questionnaires(142 copies of valid), collect and assessing the core 10 words to describe the elderly impression; finally draws the most representative words of the elderly stereotype, and the word frequency from high to low is:the frugal, agreeable, traditional, industrious, lonely, weak, kindly, doting, forgetful and nagging.The study2 mainly discusses whether the perspective taking can effectively reduce the college about the elderly explicit and implicit stereotypes. The study is divided into 2 experiments:Experiment1,58 participants randomly divided into perspective taking group and control group, and were measured before and after the experimental program to investigate the explicit elderly stereotype. The result is:perspective taking group was tested on the evaluation of the elderly significantly, namely for the elderly stereotype decreased significantly; the control group was tested on the evaluation of the elderly decreased significantly, i.e. for the elderly stereotype is obviously improved. That perspective taking can effectively reduce the external for the elderly stereotype level of contemporary college students; Experiment 2,39 participants randomly divided into perspective taking group and control group, and a single category implicit test(SC-IAT) were measured before and after the experimental procedures and tools for the study of the implicit elderly stereotypes. The results show that:the subjects for the implicit elderly stereotype in the personal expression and physical characteristics dimensions exists significant difference, while the dimensions of cognitive ability of implicit age stereotypes don’t exist significant differences, and the dimensions of physical characteristics of the implicit stereotype is strongest; perspective taking group and the control group was tested on the physical characteristics of dimensions as the representative of the implicit elderly stereotype was not significant, and perspective taking can’t effectively reduce the physical characteristics of the implicit age stereotype.The study3 is to explore the mechanism of perspective taking can effectively reduce the explicit elderly stereotype through 58 college students who is in the experimentl of the study2. They were randomly divided into perspective taking group and control group, with before and after the test for the experimental paradigm. The results is:the empathy response play a intermediary role in the progress of perspective taking weaken the explicit elderly stereotype, while the self-esteem does not play a regulatory role in this progress. And the 2 groups of subjects before and after the test of self-esteem as measured in the 2 groups of participants, the level of self-esteem didn’t change significantly, namely the 2 participants has not occure of bidirectional self-other merging in the explicit level.The above research results to our college students as subjects, to explore the effect of perspective taking on the elderly stereotype, further studies with the changes of the times and development, what is the specific content of the elderly stereotyped impression of contemporary college students; the existence of contemporary college students’ stereotype of elderly people in the perspective taking can effectively reduce; the elderly people of contemporary college students’ explicit stereotype, but perspective taking can not reduce the impression of physical dimensions as the representative of the contemporary college students’ implicit stereotypes of the elderly; the effects of perspective taking on stereotype of empathy altruism hypothesis support without verification of self-other merging model.