Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation
12-2002
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph. D.
Department
Psychological and Brain Sciences
Committee Chair
Meeks, Suzanne
Author's Keywords
Health and environmental sciences; Communication and the arts; Social sciences; Psychology; Elderly; Nursing students; Patronizing speech; Service providers; Women elderly
Abstract
Older adults are frequently the recipients of patronizing speech, particularly within healthcare settings where aging cues are salient and negative age-stereotypical expectations are common. Few studies have compared caregivers' and elderly adults' perceptions of patronizing speech. No studies have specifically examined perceptions of communicative competence in terms of how patronized elderly targets are evaluated, nor have they investigated the relationships between ratings of speech styles and ratings of the elderly target's communicative competence. Seventy-seven nursing students and 62 community elders viewed two vignettes, one in which a nurse spoke to an elder in a patronizing tone, and one in which a nurse used a non-patronizing tone. As predicted, both nursing students and older respondents preferred non-patronizing speech to patronizing speech, with nursing students showing an even greater distaste for patronizing speech than did older adults. Contrary to prediction, the two samples did not differ significantly in their ratings of the target elder. Rather, both samples blamed the victim of patronizing speech, evaluating the patronized elders as less competent than recipients of non-patronizing speech. Similarly, nursing students rated the patronized elders as less communicatively competent than the non-patronized elders. There was no support for the hypothesis that nursing students' ratings of patronizing speech are related to perceptions of the patronized elder's communicative competence, and minimal support for the hypothesized relationship between these ratings in the non-patronizing vignette. However, post hoc analyses using general competence ratings revealed that within the non-patronizing vignettes, as ratings of the target elder's competence increase, so do favorable ratings of non-patronizing speech. This relationship was significant in both nursing student and elderly samples. Results are discussed within the context of a theory and model of communication and the cognitive perspective on stereotyping.
Recommended Citation
La Tourette, Tammi Rae, "Perceptions of patronizing speech by service providers toward elderly adults: A comparison between older women and female nursing students." (2002). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4416.
Retrieved from https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd/4416
