THE AGE GROUP EVALUATION AND DESCRIPTION (AGED) INVENTORY - A NEW INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING STEREOTYPES OF AND ATTITUDES TOWARD AGE-GROUPS

The AGED Inventory was designed to overcome shortcomings identified in the Aging Semantic Differential, a frequently used measure of how age groups are perceived. The new instrument was developed to allow asses sment both of age stereotypes and of attitudes toward age-specified ta rgets. The Inventory was developed with data from 300 male and 300 fem ale respondents. Two seven-item evaluative factors (the Goodness and P ositiveness dimensions) resulted from a series of factor analyses used to reduce an initial set of thirty-five evaluative adjective pairs. T wo seven-item descriptive factors (the Vitality and Maturity dimension s) resulted from a separate series of factor analyses used to reduce a n initial set of fifty adjective pairs judged to differentiate age gro ups. Using confirmatory factor analyses and coefficients of congruence on data from an additional 800 respondents, the factor structures of the two evaluative factors and of the two descriptive factors were fou nd to be replicable for young, middle-aged, and old targets assessed i n either between or within subject designs. Its ease of administration , multi-dimensionality, flexibility of targets specification, and capa bility for assessing attitude and/or stereotype in a manner congruent with current conceptualizations of these constructs make the AGED Inve ntory useful in a variety of contexts.