Do benevolent and hostile expressions of ageism really differ? The underlying role of social attitudes, personality, values, emotions, and beliefs
(2025) Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology — Vol. 35, n° 5, p. e70169 (2025)
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- Are individual differences sustaining benevolent and hostile ageism similar or different? Across two studies (Ns = 254 and 292), we investigated key individual differences hypothesized to sustain benevolent ageism and hostile expressions of ageism, i.e., hostile ageism and intergenerational tension (consumption, succession, identity): social attitudes, personality, values, emotions, belief flexibility, religiosity, and intergenerational contact. Both benevolent and hostile expressions of ageism denoted typical prejudicial dispositions: high authoritarianism and social dominance, low self-transcendent values, lower belief flexibility, and lower education. Additionally, hostile expressions of ageism reflected indifference and depreciation: lower compassion, agreeableness, and contact with older persons, and highly valuing self-enhancement (power, achievement). Benevolent ageism represented an ambivalent mixture of pity/ compassion, collectivism (tradition, religiosity), and fear (security, death anxiety). Mediational analyses indicated that religiosity’s link with conservatism (authoritarianism) can lead to ageism, but religiosity’s link with compassion explains religious people’s tendency to show benevolent, not hostile ageism.
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Saroglou, V., Agrigoroaei, S., Giorgio, A., & Fraselle, A. (2025). Do benevolent and hostile expressions of ageism really differ? The underlying role of social attitudes, personality, values, emotions, and beliefs. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 35(5), e70169. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.70169 (Original work published 2025)