Exploring the mental models of university students’ attitudes toward older adults in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

Taiwan is facing population aging, a decreasing fertility rate, and reduced adherence to the traditional practice of filial piety. Society as a whole has negative stereotypes about older adults, who are regarded as unproductive burdens on their families and society. Older adults experience ageism from others as well as their own as they grow older, they even have low regard for themselves, seeing themselves as weak, sickly, and unable to work. How can we explore the exact attitudes of younger people toward older adults? Doing so is crucial for society to reverse its ageism against the older adult and foster harmonious intergenerational interactions by promoting positive concepts about aging. This study employed interactive qualitative analysis(IQA), which is a rigorous and systematic mixed method of research, to ensure the consistency, coherence, and structural quality of focus group members’ opinions, which were consolidated to identify the components of the problem. Quantitative exploratory power analysis was then performed to produce a mindmap with causal relationships. Then, interviews were also conducted for data validation and interpretation. The key research results were as follows: (1)the four key mental thoughts of university students’ attitudes toward older adults: Traditional Mind-set(TM), Physiological State(PS), Life Attitude(LA), and Social Interaction(SI). (2) the university students’ mindmap to older adults is Traditional Mind-set-orientated and Physiological State-orientated. (3)the five propositions were validated: TM➔FC, TM➔LA, PS➔LA, NM➔LA, and NM➔SI. In future research, we can by defining these five propositions as hypotheses, develop a scale to measure the variable, and conduct quantitative empirical evidence.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the The research was supported by a grant from MOST Taiwan [109-2410-H-415-003 -].