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Reactions to Older People being Patronized

The Roles of Response Strategies and Attributed Thoughts

University of Kansas

Howard Giles

University of California, Santa Barbara

This article examines young people's evaluations of young and elderly targets in a patronizing encounter. Intergenerational patronizing vignettes were presented to respondents who evaluated the target characters. The presence of patronizing talk by a young individual, the nature of the older adult's response, and the thoughts of each target were manipulated in the vignette. The thoughts were manipulated as caring or dominant (younger individual), and assertive or passive (older individual). The young individual was evaluated more negatively in the patronizing, rather than neutral, speech conditions. Less assertive responses to patronizing speech resulted in evaluations of increased warmth and incompetence for the elderly patronizee. Caring thoughts by the patronizer led to more positive evaluations of her or him, although such thoughts were unlikely to be attributed when not provided. Relationships between these findings and previous research are discussed, and applied and theoretical implications are considered.

Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 4, 395-421 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X960154001


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