Findings surprise social psychologists
Older adults living in counties with greater age bias had better health outcomes than those living in areas with less age bias, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers, who were surprised at the findings.
“Quite the opposite of what we expected emerged,” says Allecia Reid, associate professor of social psychology and senior author of the paper published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. “Rather than dying earlier in counties with more negative attitudes toward older adults, we found in fact that older adults were living longer in counties with more negative attitudes towards older adults.”
Bernhard (Berni) Leidner passed away on November 19th 2022. He was one of us: A social psychologist who spent half of his 39 years of life conducting research on intergroup relations. Berni graduated from the Free University of Berlin in 2006 and in the same year he joined Emanuele Castano’s lab at the New School for Social Research, where in 2010 received his Ph.D. He spent his entire academic career at UMass Amherst where, earlier this year, he was promoted to Full Professor.
