Medical students' attitudes toward sexually active older persons

There are widespread assumptions in the literature concerning general disapproval of sexual activity in older persons. However, research evidence in support of these assumptions is sparse. An experiment that focused on attitudes toward sexually active older persons was conducted with 140 freshmen medical students. Each student read a 200-word account of a 68-year-old man or woman temporarily living in a nursing home. By random assignment, half read that the person was sexually active; there was no mention of sexuality for the remaining students. Students evaluated the 68 year old on a rating scale of 0 to 9 for such characteristics as mental alertness and cheerfulness. Regardless of the 68-year-old person's gender, the students were significantly biased in favor of the sexually active person. Implications of these findings are discussed.