Self-Help Advice on How Words Sting
You know the saying, once it leaves your mouth, you can't take it back. Sometimes our words are more damaging than we know, especially to the older people in our lives.
If you thought it was bad to call your aging parents names, here's proof.
Ageist insults seriously affect the hearts and confidence of older people.
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The study, Journal of Gerontology, looked at how the use of these words affected the blood pressure and heart rate of 54 people 62 and older.
À la A Clockwork Orange, one half of the group saw words conveying negative descriptions ("senile" and "decrepit") flash across a screen, while the other half saw positive adjectives, such as "sage" and "insightful." Afterward, all participants were assigned stressful math and verbal tests, then monitored physically.
"These are terrible words that perpetuate the notion that older people are too old to do anything well anymore," asserts Tappen. "We're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, and unfortunately older people start to buy into that."