CHANGING ATTITUDES OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO OLD PEOPLE

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Abstract
The Psychology of Aging course at the University of Oregon focuses on experiential techniques of learning. In the first class each student is matched with an older person (over 60) who acts as a “consultant” to the student during the term. The student and consultant attend each class session together, and meet for at least one hour per week outside the classroom. Classes are structured to foster interpersonal discussion and small group interaction. A 17‐item semantic differential attitudinal measure was completed by 30 students and 22 consultants enrolled in the course during the first and last class meetings. Items consisted of positive and negative adjective responses to the object, “old people”, and “young people”. Positive changes in attitudes about old people were found for almost all pairs of items including: beautiful versus ugly, sensitive versus insensitive, active versus passive, successful versus unsuccessful, and negative versus positive. T tests run on the pre‐ and posttest attitudinal means for the student group were found to be statistically significant at the .05 level. In addition, consultants also became more positive in their attitudes to old people and t‐test results were significant at the .10 level. It seems that a psychology of aging course that includes a warm, interpersonal relationship with an older person gives the student an opportunity to realistically evaluate aging, since it helped both students and consultants to dispel the myths and stereotypes of aging.