Age-Related Health Stereotypes and Illusory Correlation

Abstract

This experiment investigated how age-related health stereotypes affect people's judgments of younger and older patients' medical compliance. Previous research has shown that stereotypes of young adults include healthy components, but stereotypes of older adults include both healthy and unhealthy components (Hummert, 1990). We predicted that younger patients in poor health would violate people's expectations about health in younger individuals. As a result of this violation, people would perceive younger patients to be more non-cooperative than older patients. On the other hand, because people's stereotypes of older patients contain both good and poor health components, non-cooperative older patients would be no more memorable than cooperative older patients. These hypotheses were supported by data showing that both younger and older participants formed illusory correlations between younger patients and non-cooperative behavior, but not between older patients and non-cooperative behavior. Implications for how age-related health stereotypes might affect beliefs about compliance and healthcare policy are discussed.