Attitudes to Ageing (Essay Sample)

Attitudes to Ageing
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Introduction
Surveys form one of the most reliable sources of information. Mostly, governments spend millions in trying to establish what people feel or think about something. The government intention is to get accurate information from these surveys. Most of them are used to make key decisions. The kind of conclusions made after a survey may lead to big gains or losses in terms of states revenue. Thus, the relevance of accurate surveys cannot be underestimated. This paper investigates ways of measuring people’s attitudes towards ageing, what constitutes an accurate assessment, whether all the methods of conducting surveys lead to trustworthy findings and how there might be different types of attitudes. The paper addresses these questions in the subsequent paragraphs.
Ways of measuring people’s attitudes towards ageing and old people.
According to Vauclair, Abrams and Bratt (2011) there are different indicators that can be used to measure attitudes to ageing, one of them is perceived permeability of different categories of age and the boundaries that have been put into place. This is the act of putting people according to their age groups as it is ordinarily determined by their age. The second indicator is a person’s perceived status of different age categories.
Social distance is another measure of people’s attitude towards ageing. Those people who rarely have contact with their fellows are thought to be old because they are not able to associate with those in their age groups.
Perceived threat of age groups is another measure of people’s attitudes towards ageing. This is the notion by other age categories that a threat is being posed on an essential in group goal (Stephan and Stephan, 2000)
Constitution of an accurate assessment
According to an article by custom insight, to achieve a fruitful survey, it is important to narrow down to a specific group of people as opposed to targeting the entire population. This view may nonetheless be misguiding if the survey is not inclined towards establishing for instance the number of people who use a certain product. As Shuttleworth (2008) suggests, some surveys may find everyone’s opinion useful.
In conducting a survey on people’s attitude towards old people and ageing, the UK government must come up with a good design for research. According to Shuttleworth(2008), survey research design has a lot of essence in assessing peoples trends and opinions. Shuttleworth(2008), further propounds that assessing opinions with carefully designed surveys may contribute to important change of strategies.( Shuttleworth,2008).
Stuart-Hamilton (2012) explains that judgment on what leads to ageing is dependant of several factors and among them is ‘personal attitudes’. So many factors may lead to peoples different attitudes and a person’s age is one of those factors. Thus, if the UK government intends to come up with an accurate survey on ageing, they must try to reach out to people from different age groups. Also, where a person is from could lead to a different attitude towards old people and ageing. Therefore making the survey a national wide could lead to more accurate data as opposed to concentrating on one location such as an urban or a rural place.
For instance, when establishing the attitude of people towards old people or ageing, the UK government should not rely on a particular age group or focus on a single geographical region.
In most cases, humans are ford of taking sides. The UK government must therefore consider taking measures so as to avoid biases during the survey. For instance, those involved in questioning people may find themselves with biases towards a particular group of people which may adversely affect the accuracy of the survey. Thus, the UK government must come up with a strategy to ensure that the kind of data collected during the survey reflect genuine opinions, views and feeling of the general population. This however should be done with full awareness of the fact that opinions are bound to change from time to time. Nonetheless, the findings should always show some elements of consistence based on sameness in the views, opinions and feelings of the majority.
Establishing the purpose of a survey is very important. Every single element of a survey should be guided by the objectives of the survey. Deviating from this will make the findings fatally defective and non-credible.
The kind of a survey will also dictate the amount of work that should be put in it. For instance, if the government is seeking to establish people attitude on old people or on ageing, this is rather straightforward research that requires few questions as opposed to too many question. Hence, asking too many questions on the issue would mean going beyond the scope of the survey. On the contrary, asking too few questions assuming the survey is extensive would mean that the research is not being conducted conclusively.
If the UK government is to come up with an accurate survey, coming up with an effective sample group is another factor to consider. This is mostly dictated by the nature of the survey being conducted. If for instance the UK government wants to establish the attitude of people on ageing, it is most likely to interview anyone as long as they have the ability to understand the subject matter of the survey. This is as opposed to targeting a particular group of people as it would be if a the survey is on a particular product, say a type of a drink, which would target only those people who enjoy that particular drink.
In a survey on attitudes towards old people or ageing, anyone can give an applicable opinion. Thus, in this kind of a survey the UK government must see to it that the survey cuts across diverse opinions from a reasonable population of its citizens. Additionally, it is very important that the UK government examine the kind of quantity and breadth of feedback they require to come up with reliable data.
Making consultations from those who have undertaken similar surveys before embarking on its own survey is something that the UK government should try to consider. This will help the UK government to get advice on statistical side of the research design it seeks to employ in its survey. Consequently, it will have a clear picture of how many questions and the nature of responses it will require to come up with an accurate survey.
Do all the methods of conducting surveys give us trustworthy findings?
It is a usual thing to find numerous facts and figures in our TV screens or on our daily newspapers from all manner of surveys conducted by government bodies. What is worrying about those facts and figures is that no bearing is given on the source of the data and the kind of people engaged in surveys. Despite the method used in conducting a survey, truthfulness sometimes becomes a rare thing. Shuttleworth (2008) revels that most of the data gathered from surveys is usually subject to manipulation. He states that data is cautiously sifted so as to fit the conception of the owners.
Different types of attitudes
As earlier stated, people’s perceptions of what constitute to old age may keep changing from time to time. Stuart-Hamilton,(2012) for instance expounds in his book why some factors such as physical appearance may be affected as far as attitude is concerned. He argues that physical is today manipulated through plastic surgery and replacement of genes which changes the physical appearance of a person. He therefore for propounds that those who are past sixty years of age may not be regarded as aged in the near future.
Though his approach is a more scientific one, Stuart-Hamilton,(2012) explains that in future this methods of manipulating our physical appearances will be readily available and affordable at the same time. Thus, most people will make use of them and physical appearances will no longer be a factor that determines people’s attitudes towards ageing and old people.
Other factors such as improved medical services will also affect people’s attitudes on ageing. Stuart-Hamilton,(2012) notes that improved medical services has a way of reducing the rate at which a person becomes old. Thus an aged person who has access to quality medical services may look younger than a young person who cannot access quality medical services. This fact may therefore change people’s attitude on ageing.
Stuart-Hamilton,(2012) interestingly suggests that as time goes by peoples indicators of aged persons will change. He for instance suggests that a shift in focus will take palace whereby people will stop looking at some physical characteristics such as greying of the hair or presence of wrinkles as indicators of old age and start focusi...