The perception of ageism from the perspective of different professions

Aim. The aim of the study was to compare the differences between young people’s perceptions of ageism in terms of professions: helping professions and non-helping professions.

Material and methods. We collected data by the Fraboni Ageism Scale. Cronbach α represented a value of 0.87. We performed statistical processing in SPSS 25.0 and used the t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient. The data collection of the entire research sample lasted from December 2020 to March 2021. Our final research group consisted of 262 respondents (HP and NHP). The selection criteria were the consent of each respondent, affiliation to the faculty and the age limit of 18 years and over.

Results. HP are more inclined to help others and elderly. They have a greater degree of tolerance for older adults than NHP, which is confirmed by our results (the D2: Behavior attitudes; p=0.000 and in the D3: Affective attitudes; p=0.000)).

Conclusions. For university students in preparation for their future profession, we can fundamentally influence their cognitive, affective and behavioral components of the perception of seniors. For these reasons, the evaluation of the perception of stereotypes (D1), separation (D2) and affective attitudes (D3) among students of different fields was important.