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    Can caring create prejudice? An investigation of positive and negative intergenerational contact in care settings and the generalisation of blatant and subtle age prejudice to other older people

    Drury, Lisbeth and Abrams, D. and Swift, H.J. and Lamont, R.A. and Gerocova, K. (2017) Can caring create prejudice? An investigation of positive and negative intergenerational contact in care settings and the generalisation of blatant and subtle age prejudice to other older people. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 27 (1), pp. 65-82. ISSN 1052-9284.

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    Abstract

    Caring is a positive social act, but can it result in negative attitudes towards those cared for, and towards others from their wider social group? Based on intergroup contact theory, we tested whether care workers’ (CWs) positive and negative contact with old-age care home residents (CHRs) predicts prejudiced attitudes towards that group, and whether this generalises to other older people. Fifty-six CWs were surveyed about their positive and negative contact with CHRs and their blatant and subtle at- titudes (humanness attributions) towards CHRs and older adults. We tested indirect paths from contact with CHRs to attitudes towards older adults via attitudes towards CHRs. Results showed that neither pos- itive nor negative contact generalised blatant ageism. However, the effect of negative, but not positive, contact on the denial of humanness to CHRs generalised to subtle ageism towards older adults. This ev- idence has practical implications for management of CWs’ work experiences and theoretical implications, suggesting that negative contact with a subgroup generalises the attribution of humanness to superor- dinate groups. Because it is difficult to identify and challenge subtle prejudices such as dehumanisation, it may be especially important to reduce negative contact.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Business School
    Depositing User: Lisbeth Drury
    Date Deposited: 19 Mar 2018 15:57
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:40
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/21656

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