1.1.3 Implications

Watch this short video produced by the World Health Organisation’s campaign to combat ageism.

The video focuses on the personal impact of stereotyping and prejudice based on age. You may have similar experiences in terms of how you have felt or how you have thought about another person.

Having considered stereotypes and prejudice and looked at some examples we can conclude that the society and culture we live in sometimes makes it easy to stereotype others without much thought on the consequences it can have.

Maximise

Figure 5: Shared implications of both hostile and benevolent prejudice

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A Venn diagram consisting of two blue circles intersecting to create a red area in the middle. The blue circle on the left has title ‘Hostile prejudice’ and lists the following examples: ‘Older people can’t use new tech’ and ‘Older people are a drain on society’. The blue circle on the right has the title ‘Benevolent prejudice’ and lists the following examples: ‘Older people are kindly or child-like’ and ‘Older people are vulnerable’. The red intersection area between the two blue circles has the heading ‘Implications’. Underneath this it says ‘Discrimination’, ‘People are patronised’ and ‘People are overlooked and undervalued’.

Figure 5: Shared implications of both hostile and benevolent prejudice

The negative impact of ‘hostile’ prejudice is generally more obvious, but ‘benevolent’ prejudice is also damaging, perhaps more subtly so. Benevolent stereotypes and prejudices may seem harmless, perhaps even kind, but can mean older people can be seen as 'not up to the job' or 'incompetent'. They can also lead to assumptions that it is 'natural' for older people to have lower expectations, reduced choice and control with less account taken of their views.