How mental health professionals perceive old(er) adults

Findings from an ageism scale used for discourse analysis purposes

Authors

  • Rosita Maglie University of Bari Aldo Moro
  • Ignazio Grattagliano University of Bari Aldo Moro

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.21298

Keywords:

ageism, mental health professionals, scale-based approach, discourse analytical approach, corpus linguistics

Abstract

This multidisciplinary work mainly uses a discourse analytical approach (Fairclough 1995; Sarangi 2010a, 2010b) and fine tools (i.e., corpora and text analysis software, Baker 2010) in order to identify the possible presence of ageism (Butler 1969) from responses provided by psychologists who completed the Fraboni Scale of Ageism (Fraboni et al. 1990) used in the Italian validation (Donizzetti 2010) and further adapted to achieve the objective of this study. In fact, for each item (Tot=19) distributed along this 3-dimensional model (separation and avoidance; stereotypes and antilocution; affective attitudes and discrimination), 177 respondents were asked to express their (dis)agreement, not with numbers, as in the traditional scale, but with a text (D’Amico et al. 2020). With reference to the above-mentioned dimensions, some results unveiled the psychologists’ recurring belief system as follows: 38% of respondents believed that old people complain much more than other people, thus confirming their idea of a separate group from theirs; 35.7% thought that the elderly should be entrusted with the care of infants only when supervised, thus fitting the stereotype of the fixed age-identity category; and 80.6 % declared that they were unwilling to reciprocate if an old person initiated a conversation for external and/or context/personality-dependent reasons, thus justifying their discriminatory attitudes. Limited but not negligible results demonstrate a need for mental health education and training to be monitored in order to better understand the professionals’ belief system that emerges from their discourse on old age, because the reiteration of the same belief system, if cemented in social memory, has the strong effect of conferring an aura of objectivity to prevailing attitudes towards old(er) adults, and of inevitably affecting standard professional inter/actions with them. 

Author Biographies

  • Rosita Maglie, University of Bari Aldo Moro

    Rosita Maglie (PhD in Translation Studies) is an Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Bari Aldo Moro. She has published monographs, papers and book chapters on corpus-assisted discourse studies, (critical) discourse analysis, LSP, computer-mediated communication, multimodality, applied linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Her current research focuses on conspiracy theories and podcast-mediated communication as well as the discourse of discrimination against older adults and people with justice system involvement.

  • Ignazio Grattagliano, University of Bari Aldo Moro

    Ignazio Grattagliano is an Associate Professor of Clinical Criminology and Forensic Psychopathology and of Forensic Psychodiagnostics applied to work contexts at the University of Aldo Moro, Bari. He is also a psychologist, psychotherapist, and specialist in clinical criminology. He is the author of 390 publications in inter/national journals. He has participated as a speaker with his own contributions to 400 scientific congresses and conferences, relating to the medico-legal, criminological, and psychiatric–forensic area.

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Published

2022-04-27

How to Cite

Maglie, R., & Grattagliano, I. (2022). How mental health professionals perceive old(er) adults: Findings from an ageism scale used for discourse analysis purposes. Journal of Language and Discrimination, 6(1), 64–92. https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.21298