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Objective: Negative attitudes to ageing (AtA) are associated with poorer health and well-being outcomes. Gendered ageing experiences may translate into gender differences in AtA. This study aims to explore whether there is a relationship
between age, gender, their interaction and AtA.
Method: Cross-sectional relationships between age, gender, their intersection and AtA were investigated, using a sample of 260 British people aged 60 – 100
years. AtA were assessed by the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire’s (AAQ; Laidlaw et al., 2007) three domains: Psychosocial Loss, Physical Change and Psychological Growth.
Results: Hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that greater age was statistically significantly associated with increased psychosocial loss and less
favourable attitudes regarding physical changes, but not psychological growth. Gender and gender’s interaction with age were not statistically significantly
associated with any of the AAQ domains. Some demographic predictors were statistically significantly associated with domains of the AAQ, with this varying
between domains.
Conclusions: The ageing experiences of the males and females in the sample were not fully representative of the general population, possibly contributing to the absence of statistically significant relationships between gender, the age by gender interaction and AtA. Specific demographic factors are associated with negative AtA for both genders. However, females may be at a heightened risk of
endorsing negative AtA as they may be more likely to experience those demographic factors. The current study could be replicated within multiple, smaller age categories of older people, to determine whether predictors of AtA vary across specific timepoints of later life. |
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