Old People Enjoy Reading Negative Stories About Young 122
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the stupid-kids dept.
from the stupid-kids dept.
A study by Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and co-author Matthias Hastall suggests that your grandma's self-esteem gets a boost when she hears about the stupid things young people do. "Living in a youth centered culture, they may appreciate a boost in self-esteem. That's why they prefer the negative stories about younger people, who are seen as having a higher status in our society," said Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick. From the article: "All the adults in the study were shown what they were led to believe was a test version of a new online news magazine. They were also given a limited time to look over either a negative and positive version of 10 pre-selected articles. Each story was also paired with a photograph depicting someone of either the younger or the older age group. The researchers found that older people were more likely to choose to read negative articles about those younger than themselves. They also tended to show less interest in articles about older people, whether negative or positive."
Re:Get off my LAWN! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101921/quotes?qt0443462 [imdb.com]
Re:Old People Enjoy Reading Negative Stories About (Score:5, Informative)
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
~ Socrates (399 BC)
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Socrates ever said that. Your quote first appeared in the book Personality and Adjustment in 1953. There is no evidence of the quote before that date. See
http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html [bartleby.com]
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=398104 [google.com]
Re:Old People Enjoy Reading Negative Stories About (Score:4, Informative)
Slashlag (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Control Group? (Score:5, Informative)
From the physorg [physorg.com] article:
This study came about because a previous study by the same researchers, using this same data, had produced unexpected results, Knobloch-Westerwick said. The original study had hypothesized that people prefer media messages that portray people like themselves - people of the same age and the same gender, in this case. Overall, the original study found that was indeed true. However, the researchers were puzzled by the fact that older people in that first study seemed as equally interested in stories about younger people as they were in stories about older people like themselves.
This is what makes the study interesting and why it can't be chalked up to 'I don't like people who disagree with me'. Its too bad the summery failed to mention this.
Re:They have a saying (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/you-ask-the-questions-pete-townshend-660476.html [independent.co.uk]
You once publicly instructed the Rolling Stones not to grow old gracefully. What about Pete Townshend? Are you glad you didn't die before you got old?
Nick MacGregor, by e-mail
Ah hypocrisy! Does the questioner believe I am looking graceful? I feel like a wreck after five Who shows in the past week. Recently, I did my stint as an editor at Faber and Faber, and even that didn't feel graceful. How was I to know that the literary fraternity live harder, faster and more illicitly than rock stars?
And from People.com
Pete himself, who wrote in My Generation in 1966, "Hope I die before I grow old," now feels drastically different about aging. "Picasso," he points out, "still had a shining light in his eyes at 76."