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Updated: May 29, 2026

Highlighting and Reducing the Impact of Negative Aging Stereotypes During Older Adults' Cognitive Testing
Published on: January 24, 2020
Internalization of age stereotypes into the self-concept via future self-views: a general model and domain-specific
Anna E Kornadt1, Klaus Rothermund
1Department of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany. anna.kornadt@unijena.de
Abstract:
We investigated a pathway through which age stereotypes (AS) become internalized into the self. Domain-specific AS, as well as future self-views (FS) and current self-views (CS), were assessed in a sample of middle-aged and older adults. AS were positively related to CS and this effect was mediated via FS. These relations were stronger for older persons, indicating that the internalization process depends on a self-categorization as being old. A comparison of life domains revealed that an age-dependent internalization of AS emerged mainly for those domains in which age-related changes are expected to occur during later phases of life.
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