Gender and ageism: the role of aesthetic preferences in the aging double standard

Decades of research have investigated the implications of the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype, termed the halo effect for physical attractiveness whereby favorable personality traits are attributed to attractive people more so than unattractive people. This robust stereotype impacts important life outcomes with attractive people receiving more salary increases and job opportunities than unattractive people (Eagly et al., 1991; Eagly, 1987; Zebrowitz, 1997). People belonging to groups who do not meet their culture’s aesthetic standards are stigmatized and tend to show automatic outgroup preference (the elderly, the overweight, and African Americans; Goffman, 1963). In the U.S, a culture that values youth and beauty, older people are at a disadvantage (Kite, Whitely, Stockdale, & Johnson, 1995; see also Kotter-Gruhn & Hess, 2012; Kwart, Foulsham, & Kingstone, 2012) and older women are stigmatized more so than older men (Sontag, 1972). Sontag coined the term the “double standard of aging’’ which refers to the fact that men are valued for their accomplishments (which increase with age), whereas women are valued for their appearance (which diminishes with age). The present study investigated whether there is explicit and implicit evidence for the double standard of aging to help explain why the elderly automatically possess ageist attitudes that are as prevalent as those for young people (Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002) by using the attitude, stereotype, and aesthetic Implicit Association Tests (IAT) and their self-report (explicit) counterparts. Consistent with the double standard, participants (N = 248, 167 Women, M age = 37.77) reported that society views young women as the most attractive group (Foos & Clark, 2011), and they also agreed that the advantage turns into a penalty such that older women are viewed as the least attractive group (Deutsch, Salenski, & Clark, 1986). Using the IATs, as expected, people automatically associated young people with positivity, attractiveness, and youthful traits more so than old people. I also expected to find evidence for the double standard for aging, such that implicit attitudes towards older women would be (1) more negative than attitudes toward older men, and (2) informed by aesthetic evaluations, whereas implicit attitudes towards older men were expected to be better informed by stereotypes. However, I did not find supporting evidence. Instead, attitudes, aesthetic preferences, and stereotypes were more positive toward young people than old people, regardless of target gender. In addition, all three IATs positively covaried to the same extent, regardless of target gender. However, because the measures were designed to assess ageism by contrasting young people with old people across two conditions (contrasting either young vs. old women or young vs. old men), it may be that pro-youth positivity overwhelmed responses. Future research should directly compare old men to old women using implicit measures to establish a better comparison between gender-based ageist associations and determine whether appearance stigma contributes to the double standard of aging.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Meghan C. McLea