“Old Oxen Cannot Plow”: Stereotype Themes of Older Adults in Turkish Folklore

Abstract

Purpose of the Study:

Although much research has established the nature of attitudes and stereotypes toward older adults, there are conflicting explanations for the root cause of ageism, including the sociocultural view and interpersonal views, that age bias against older adults is uniquely a product of modernity and occurs through social interactions, and the evolutionary view and intraindividual views, that age bias against older adults is rooted in our naturally occurring and individually held fear of death. We make initial investigations into resolving this conflict, by analyzing literature from a society predating the Industrial Revolution, the society of Ottoman Turks.

Design and Methods:

Using Grounded Theory, we analyzed 1,555 Turkish fairy tales of the most well-known older adult in Turkish folklore, Nasreddin Hoca, for stereotype themes of older adults. Using the same method, we then analyzed 22,000+ Turkish sayings and proverbs for the same themes.

Results:

Results indicated older adults to be viewed both positively and negatively. Positive stereotypes included wisdom, warmth, deserving of respect, and retirement. Negative stereotypes included incompetence, inadaptability, and frailty/nearing of death. Older females were viewed more negatively relative to older males.

Implications:

Results indicated views of older adults to parallel those found in contemporary research. Results have implications for the design of interventions to reduce ageism and on the cross-cultural generalizability of age-based stereotypes.

Yaşlı öküzle ҫift sürülmez

Turkish proverb

Much research in applied psychology has established common stereotypes held against older adults. A number of narrative and quantitative reviews document the content of these stereotypes and indicate that stereotypes toward older adults have generally been found to be both negative (i.e., incompetent, unable to learn, resistant to change, in poor health) and positive (warm and friendly, stable, dependable). Despite an abundance of evidence across a quarter-century on the content of age stereotypes and their consequences, however, the root cause of ageism itself remains in dispute, with ambiguity regarding whether age discrimination against older adults has evolutionary or sociocultural roots (North & Fiske, 2012).

There are competing explanations as to why ageism is prevalent in contemporary societies. Two general classes of theories exist, with one class of theories focusing on the root causes of ageism, and the other focusing on the source of variation. Focusing on root causes, theories taking the evolutionary approach suggest that ageism is rooted in evolutionary biology and a result of our natural fear of death. A countervailing set of theories follow the sociocultural approach, suggesting that ageism is a product of modernity and its associated de-emphasis on the role of the elder (North & Fiske, 2012). Relatedly, theories focusing on source of variation are epistemologically linked to the former two approaches. On the one hand, individual-level theories such as Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg, Schimel, & Martens, 2004) postulate that ageism occurs intraindividually, stemming from people’s natural aversion to old age and its association with death. Conversely, interpersonal theories suggest that older people’s unattractive physical appearance leads to negative halo effects in face-to-face interactions and thereby causes them to be devalued by relevant actors within a sociocultural environment (North & Fiske, 2012). The goal of this paper, then, is to examine the relative merits of one versus other theoretical approaches to the study of ageism. Resolving this dispute can help researchers refine interventions to reduce age-based prejudice and to better conceptualize the potential domain of relevant outcomes with regard to ageism against older adults.

As well established in the social psychological literature, stereotypes constitute generalized verbal representations of particular groups. Stereotypes, or generalized cognitions toward members of a particular group, represent lay theories regarding attributes of such group members and have been found to mediate relations between demographic categories and attitudinal outcomes (King, Madera, Hebl, Knight, & Mendoza, 2006). As such, stereotypes are reflected in the collective and commonly used language of societies. Thus, examining the language used by a society may provide a basis for understanding attitudes toward older adults in preindustrial cultures. To the extent that age-based stereotype themes from traditional folklore (i.e., the written record of an ancient society’s speech output) are comparable with stereotypes found in contemporary society, we may make initial inferences regarding the relative merits of competing theoretical views.

Specifically, we examine the content of age stereotypes in traditional Turkish society by studying Turkish fairy tales and proverbs. This approach has previously been applied to the study and identification of sex-based stereotypes (Ingalls, 2012). Because culture influences cognition and views of social relationships (Fung, 2013), we keep culture constant and focus on representation of older adults in the largely preindustrial folklore of that culture. We contrast findings from analyzed folklore with stereotypes identified in the contemporary, extant literature, displayed in Table 1. Hence, we seek to gain a window into the world of ancient Anatolia, in the time of the Ottoman Turks, insofar as perceptions regarding older adults are concerned, and examine the extent to which stereotype themes emerging from the analyses of folklore are similar to contemporary stereotypes of older adults.

Competing Theories of the Roots of Ageism

The Sociocultural View

Drawing from social role theory, the sociocultural view of ageism explains the status of older adults as a function of their diminished roles in modern society (North & Fiske, 2012). Sociocultural theories of ageism focus on the social roles occupied by older adults in contemporary society, noting although accorded much warmth, they are often relegated to positions of low power and are perceived as useless or incompetent (Cuddy & Fiske, 2002; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). From a sociocultural perspective, older adults play a much diminished role in industrialized as opposed to traditional societies because their conventional roles as repositories of the stored knowledge and wisdom of tribal communities have been devalued by the advent of information technology (Diamond, 2012; Nelson, 2005). Proponents of this view maintain that pressure toward mobility of family units and the ability to adapt to changing technology fostered by the Industrial Revolution led to devaluation of less mobile and perceivably less adaptable older adults (Nelson, 2005). For example, Diamond (2012) contrasts practices regarding elder care in modern and tribal societies and notes that older people enjoyed greater support from extended families and the community at large in ancient tribal societies. In an early study, Jensen and Oakley (1982) reviewed the treatment of older adults in preliterate societies and found mixed results, noting that although many preliterate societies afforded special treatment of older adults by holding them in high regard for their wisdom, knowledge of the arts and literature, and experience, a large number of such societies routinely abandoned older members of their tribes, often leaving them to die. In general, however, Jensen and Oakley (1982) concluded that the practices of preliterate societies were more positive toward elders than they were negative. A more recent review of preliterate societies by Diamond (2012) confirmed these findings. Overall, it appears that the majority of preliterate societies behaved more positively toward older adults, routinely granting them positions of authority and respect on account of their perceived wisdom and experience (Diamond, 2012). Nevertheless, more positive treatment of older adults is not the exclusive province of preliterate societies, for there are examples of such traditions that persist into the modern era, most notably with East Asian cultures influenced by Confucian values of filial piety (Palmore & Maeda, 1985).

The Interpersonal View

Closely linked to the sociocultural view is the interpersonal view of ageism, which focuses on face-to-face social interactions with older adults, and postulates that older people’s unattractive physical appearance leads to generally negative evaluations of them by both children and adults (North & Fiske, 2012). According to the interpersonal view, the context in which an interaction occurs is a primary determinant of ageism, with older adults being particularly stigmatized when the context highlights one or other negative features of old age, such as in a physically demanding job (Zebrowitz & Montepare, 2003). Importantly, culture is viewed as a key contextual aspect within the interpersonal view, with the devaluation of older adults in modern society theorized to have contributed to their concomitant devaluation in contemporary interpersonal interactions (Zebrowitz & Montepare, 2003). Thus, the interpersonal view is arguably linked to the sociocultural view, with the difference being a focus on the source of variation in ageism (interpersonal view) as opposed to a focus on root causes themselves (sociocultural view).

The Evolutionary View

In contrast to the sociocultural view, evolutionary explanations for ageism draw upon Darwinian cues for inclusive fitness, with the implication that the aged are discriminated against because of the association of old age with infirmity, disease, and sickness, all of which threaten group survival (North & Fiske, 2012). This perspective draws from evolutionary function theory, positing that in-group bias and out-group exploitation/avoidance serve to increase group survival among members of a species (Kurzban & Leary, 2001). Evidence for this functional explanation for social exclusion abounds within the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees in particular routinely ostracize individuals who violate group norms, attack out-group members who threaten group resources, and abandon sick or feeble members of the band (Kurzban & Leary, 2001). Evolutionary theories of ageism seek to explain bias against older adults as a function of mortality salience, reasoning that the innate human tendency to fear death leads individuals to avoid and discriminate against individuals who are reminiscent of death (i.e., older adults; Greenberg et al., 2004). It is explained as a form of parasite avoidance, whereby evolution and the need for survival of the species and the individual is seen to result in an innate human tendency to favor objects reminiscent of beauty, symmetry, and health and disfavor potentially parasitized individuals (Kurzban & Leary, 2001). In support of an evolutionary explanation for ageism, recent research on implicit evaluations has found that although in-group preference was clearly demonstrated for race and religion, members of all age groups held most negative and least positive views toward older adults, and least negative and most positive views toward children (Axt, Ebersole, & Nosek, 2014).

The Individual-Level View

Related to the evolutionary view of ageism are individual-level theories of ageism, which seek to explain ageism as a function of evolutionarily based individual defense mechanisms against old age and death (North & Fiske, 2012). In this view, ageism and age stereotypes are viewed as intraindividually functional, whereby a natural aversion to older adults serve to protect an individual’s ego from the threat of old age and death (Snyder & Meine, 1994). Individual-level theories, such as TMT (Greenberg et al., 2004), explain ageism as inherently rooted within the individual psyche and occurring as a function of the mortality salience that the presence of older adults triggers. Thus, it can be seen that, as with the sociocultural and interpersonal views, both individual-level and evolutionary theories of ageism are linked, with differences again being driven by theoretical focus, with individual-level theories focusing on source of variation, and evolutionary theories emphasizing root causes themselves.

Contrasting Theoretical Causes of Ageism

From the preceding discussion, it can be seen that there are two overarching theoretical approaches as to the root cause of ageism, with one approach suggesting that ageism is rooted in an intraindividual and evolutionary fear of death, and a countervailing approach suggesting that ageism is rooted in interindividual sociocultural devaluation of the elder in modern society.

As documented earlier, both the interpersonally derived sociocultural and intraindividually derived evolutionary views have found some support within the psychological literature, thereby leading to the question as to which of these is more theoretically sound. On the one hand, proponents of the sociocultural view point to generally more positive practices toward older adults in traditional societies and the diminished role of tribal elders in modern societies; on the other hand, proponents of the evolutionary view are buttressed by the existence for similarly age-discriminatory practices in the animal kingdom and evidence documenting the lack of in-group bias by older and middle-aged adults when confronted with older targets. In essence, the ubiquitous debate on nature (the evolutionary view) versus nurture (the sociocultural view) holds true when it comes to the roots of ageism, with proponents of both sides showing evidence in support of their respective arguments.

Research has documented the existence of negative attitudes and stereotypes against older adults in both contemporary Western and Eastern samples such as the United States, Japan (Koyano, 1989), and Hong Kong (Chiu, Chan, Snape, & Redman, 2001). However, findings regarding the prevalence of ageism across contemporary cultures do not address the question we pose because any such samples would inevitably come from industrialized societies. Nor is an approach examining practices in preliterate societies fully adequate because behaviors toward the aged can be confounded by third causes unrelated to ageist attitudes. For example, abandonment of elders by hunter-gatherer societies may reflect necessity and not ageist attitudes. Similarly, elders in positions as advisors do not necessarily imply that attitudes toward them are not discriminatory. In fact, they may reflect the opposite because prejudice can be alternatively hostile (negative attitudes and stereotypes) or benevolent (patronizing attitudes and stereotypes; Fiske et al., 2002). In other words, the very practice of conferring advisor or chief status based upon age may itself be considered ageist because the pigeonholing of older adults into a select few roles, regardless of role status, may alternatively be viewed as a positive (honoring the aged) or a negative thing (restricting the aged to hold only certain positions, regardless of individual differences in ability and desire).

We examine the language used to describe older adults in a society preceding or at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and with both contemporary and traditional parallels, in order to confirm the continuity of such cognitions in that society. If similar stereotypes as listed in Table 1 are found in the pre-Industrial Revolution data, then this would imply that ageism existed in the culture at hand before the advent of the Industrial Revolution; continuation of such stereotypes in that society’s post-Industrial Revolution data will confirm the continuity of these attitudes. Thus, we are able to examine whether the notion that ageism is a sociocultural product of the Industrial Revolution is supported, within the confines of one particular society.

Here, we chose to examine Ottoman Turkish (Anatolian) society because Turkish society has continuously existed since the third century B.C., with the first historically recorded Turkish state being that of the Asian Huns of the third century B.C. (Seydi, 2007). Anatolia took various forms over successive empires across the centuries, from the inception of the Byzantine empire in the 400s, to the establishment of the Ottoman empire in the 1400s, and up to the modern Turkish republic established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923; at its zenith, the society of Ottoman Turks bordered an area of over 12 million square miles, stretching all the way west up to Vienna (Seydi, 2007). The society of Ottoman Turkey thereby presents a case where the language of the era may be examined in the centuries preceding, immediately after, and post-Industrial Revolution.

Methods

Analytical Approach

We employed a Grounded Theory method of analysis in order to examine the folklore detailed below. As defined by Charmaz (2006, p. 2), “…grounded theory methods consist of systematic, yet flexible guidelines for collecting and analyzing qualitative data to construct theory ‘grounded’ in the data themselves.” Thus, Grounded Theory is an inductive research approach where the researcher generates theory from data rather than deducing hypotheses from prior theory. The method involves coding the data, deriving categories from codes, and having the theory emerge after data are saturated; the point of saturation is reached when adding further observations yields no additional and unique insight (Charmaz, 2006). Not without criticism, the idea of “theory free” hypotheses has been questioned on the grounds that because people have adopted certain ways of seeing, objectivity cannot be fully provided without a priori hypotheses (Gasson, 2003). Therefore, Gasson advocates for establishment of clear and replicable procedures for research in the application of Grounded Theory. In this spirit of inquiry, and in order to triangulate toward conclusions, we supplemented our Grounded Theory analyses of fairy tales and proverbs/sayings from Turkish literature with content analysis of proverbs/sayings generated by contemporary young Turkish adults.

Selection of Turkish Folklore

Because the question we posed necessitated the study of everyday language, we excluded academic texts, military terms, palace language, religious works, business and political terms, and scientific/disciplinary sources. By exclusion of these, we were left with folklore—sayings, proverbs, and tales that represent the culture of a societal era.

Turkish Fairy Tales

We chose fairy tales centered on older adults. More specifically, we examined Turkish fairy tales centered on an iconic older adult in Turkish literature, “Nasrettin Hoca” (pronounced “nas-ret-tin ho-ja,” but spelled “Nasreddin,” and translated as “Teacher Nasreddin”). Nasreddin is said to be an old teacher who reputedly lived in the 13th century, in Aksehir, near modern-day Konya, Turkey. He was reputedly married in a lifelong and monogamous relationship, though details of the character and history of his wife are largely omitted. The tales of Nasreddin Hoca represent an oral tradition passed down through the generations from the 13th century on (Akkaya, 2013), with the first written tales appearing in the 16th century (Duman, 2008). The tales largely predate the industrial era, as evidenced by references to the world of agrarian civilization (Akkaya, 2013). The original tales were written in Ottoman Turkish, whereas 20th-century versions have been written in the modern Turkish alphabet (Duman, 2008). Like most fairy tales, the language used has changed over time; nevertheless, the tales of Nasreddin Hoca have shown relative consistency in retellings, with even an English-translation compilation from the mid-1800s being verifiably similar to contemporary retellings (Akkaya, 2013).

An exhaustive list including 1,555 tales of Nasreddin Hoca are compiled in Duman (2008). Duman’s compendium includes some written tales from the original 16th-century version, some tales from later stages of the Ottoman Empire, and some tales written in more contemporary times; differences between older and newer tales mainly have to do with language (e.g., Shakespearean vs modern English), with depictions of Nasreddin Hoca remaining stable over the centuries (Duman, 2008). Because Nasreddin Hoca is a figure that is familiar to cultures across the former Ottoman empire, including Arabic, Albanian, Bosnian, Persian, Pashto, Romanian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Turkish (Duman, 2008), we excluded tales not explicitly identifiable as Turkish. This left us with a population of 350 potential tales to analyze. A small minority of these tales constituted stories of Nasreddin as a young boy and were excluded (examination of these latter tales did not indicate any differences in identified themes). We also excluded tales that did not explicitly focus on Nasreddin or his equally old wife. Finally, we included only tales that either (a) explicitly referenced age or (b) provided enough information to make judgments regarding the perceived personality and other characteristics of Nasreddin. This left us with a final sample of 36 analyzed tales, displayed in Table 2.

Turkish Sayings and Proverbs

Forty-five young adult native speakers of Turkish enrolled in an introductory undergraduate Psychology course and voluntarily participating for extra course credit were each asked to come up with at least five proverbs or sayings from Turkish culture that explicitly referenced old age. They generated a total of 224 proverbs, with repetitions; we also grouped together highly similar proverbs (e.g., “a tree is most pliable when it is young” is equivalent to “a tree is most pliable when it is a shoot”), in order to ensure that each proverb was unique. After discarding proverbs that either did not explicitly reference age or that were Turkish translations of non-Turkish authors (e.g., Disraeli), we were left with 34 unique Turkish proverbs.

We then supplemented these participant-generated proverbs by examining two independent compendia: one listing 10,750 Turkish proverbs published by the Turkish government (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı Yayınları, 2001), and one academic text listing 2,000 proverbs and 10,000 sayings (Püsküllüoğlu, 2004). Examination of these resulted in the addition of another 48 unique proverbs, totaling 82 unique Turkish proverbs referencing age. Two sayings/proverbs were provided only by study participants, 48 were provided by the compendia but not by participants and 32 were provided in both the compendia and by participants. We traced the two proverbs provided only by study participants to the Turkish mystic Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi (“Old people read on a piece of brick that which the young cannot even see in the mirror”; Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Başbakanlık Diyanet İşleri Bakanlığı, 2010) and to the local folklore of the Turkish province of Batman (“Old oxen cannot plow”; Batman İl Kültür ve Turizm Müdürlüğü, 2014). Thus, 100% of the 34 retained proverbs and phrases identified by study participants were confirmed to exist in Turkish folklore. As evidence that our analysis had reached the point of saturation, excepting wealth and isolation, all other themes (retirement, wisdom, warmth, health, competence, adaptability, and frailty/death) were provided both by the compendia and by participants.

A list is provided in Table 3, with codes capturing, content, valence, age-type, and sex-type of representations regarding older adults that were conveyed by each of these proverbs. Both the original Turkish versions and English translations are provided in Table 3. All translations were done by the second author, who holds a doctorate in culture and literature, has taught both English and Turkish professionally for a number of years, and is fluent in both English and Turkish (with native fluency in Turkish). As shown, sayings/proverbs that were highly similar to each other were grouped together under the same row and separated by forward slashes; English translations of these are also separated by forward slashes whenever the semantic content of the originals is different.

Dating of Turkish Sayings/Proverbs

Because our goal was to examine representations of older adults in preindustrial Anatolian (Turkish) culture, we attempted to verify the approximate dates of listed proverbs. However, Turkish proverbs are largely based on an intergenerational oral tradition, with most origins resultantly being lost in antiquity and with the great majority of them being of anonymous origin (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı Yayınları, 2001). It is similarly difficult to estimate dates for English proverbs because “proverbs are passed down in the oral tradition from generation to generation, the first written record … is likely to be a poor indication of the saying’s actual origin” (Flavell & Flavell, 2008, p. 6). As Flavell and Flavell (2008) note, proverbs often come from worlds that are far removed from contemporary civilization. The oldest written text of Turkish literature, Orhun abideleri (“Orkhon Inscriptions”), dates back to the early eighth century, and a few proverbs in Orhun abideleri still exist among contemporary Turkish proverbs. For example, the proverb “ağaç yaş iken eğilir” (“a tree is most pliable when it is young”) has its original version in Orhun abideleri. Furthermore, the origins of many proverbs pertaining to agricultural themes such as animals and plants can be estimated to predate the industrial era. When animals in proverbs are considered, until the 19th century, people observed both domesticated and wild animals and drew lessons from their behavior to apply to their own; for example, oxen were widely used for plowing until the 19th century (Flavell & Flavell, 2008). Hence, the Turkish proverb “yaşlı öküzle çift sürülmez” (“old oxen cannot plow”) may be estimated to predate the Industrial Revolution. Similarly, a majority of the proverbs listed in Table 3 reference animals and vegetation, strengthening the notion that these proverbs largely predate the Industrial era.

Coding Procedures

Both authors independently coded the fairy tales and proverbs/sayings. Agreement was reached the majority of the time; a small minority of disputed cases were discussed by both authors and resolved to reach 100% agreement. For both the fairy tales and the proverbs/sayings, stereotype content was coded as the main trait emerging from the item at hand, and stereotype valence was coded to reflect whether the item at hand was negative or positively valenced toward the focal trait in the item at hand. For example, tale 495 of Nasreddin Hoca (see Table 2) was coded as reflecting wisdom (positively) because Nasreddin, after exhausting the list of options from the sailors (i.e., either a compass or a map to find their way at sea), simply admonished them to start praying—the tale reflected how practical Nasreddin was, as a problem-solver, and in coming to terms with the lack of options. As another example, tale 555 of Nasreddin Hoca was coded as indicating foolishness because of Nasreddin’s thinking that the infant would fall asleep by reading; we also coded this tale as exhibiting frailty because of its depiction of Nasreddin as a somnambulist, unable to stay up at night if even to read a book.

For the sayings/proverbs, sex-type refers to whether the saying/proverb at hand is gender-neutral, primarily about males, or has female as the focal group. For the 34 sayings/proverbs generated by participants, frequencies denote the number of times a particular saying/proverb was generated by our participant pool. Illustratively, the proverb “When a man ages, he becomes a ram; when a woman ages, she becomes nothing” was coded as negatively valenced against females and focusing primarily on competence because of the ram’s association with strength and performance; the proverb “An old wolf is never lost” was coded as gender-neutral and positively valenced toward older adults, with a focus on wisdom because of the association of age with knowing one’s way around the forest.

Results

Analysis of Nasreddin Hoca Tales

English-language translations of the 36 selected tales of Nasreddin Hoca, with accompanying tale numbers from Duman’s (2008) compendium and emergent characteristics of Nasreddin (or his wife), are provided in Table 2. As before, all tales were translated by the second author. In line with stereotypes regarding older women as lacking in beauty, frail, and grandmotherly (Hummert, 1990), the three tales that focused on Nasreddin Hoca’s wife referenced stereotype themes of frailty/decay and beauty, or the lack of it; all were negative. Of the remaining 33 tales focusing on Nasreddin Hoca, 13 were positively, 8 were negatively, and 12 were neutrally valenced, mirroring the nature of age stereotypes in contemporary culture (cf. Table 1) as being both positive and negative. Positive depictions of Nasreddin Hoca mainly focused on his perceived wisdom, warmth, and geniality. On the negative side, contrary to perceived wisdom, he was overwhelmingly depicted as foolish or incompetent and sometimes also as being frail/nearing death.

The picture that emerged of Nasreddin Hoca was the caricature of the wise old fool, experienced with age yet simultaneously incompetent, doddering but dear. Figure 1 offers a classical depiction of Nasreddin Hoca, seated on an ass, backwards, as a representation of these combined themes. Summarily, similarities in depictions of Nasreddin Hoca from 13th-century Turkish folklore bear striking resemblance to representations of older adults in contemporary psychological research, with negative themes being centered on notions of incompetence and frailty, and positive themes on notions of experience and warmth.

Analysis of Turkish Sayings/Proverbs

As shown in Table 3, the majority of sayings/proverbs (68) referenced old age as the focal category, 10 focused on youth, and 4 focused on neither young nor old in particular. Perhaps reflecting the gender-neutral nature of the Turkish language (e.g., a tree, a man, a book, or a woman may all be referred to using the generic identifier “o”), almost all proverbs were gender-neutral (75), 5 referenced males, and 2 referenced females. Of the 10 proverbs that referenced youth, 3 were positive, 6 were negative, and 1 was a general statement referencing youth (“To be trained from an early age”). Of the positive young-typed proverbs, two were general positive evaluative statements about youth (e.g., “The value of young age is understood at an elderly age”), and the other associated youth with adaptability (“A tree is most pliable when it is young”). Negatively valenced young-type proverbs associated with youth included one that associated children with vulnerability or weakness (“A child’s mouth smells of milk”), and five that associated youth with deserving less respect (e.g., “If I did not have a beard, you would not listen to what I have to say”).

Of the 68 proverbs that referenced old age, 31 were negatively valenced, 27 were positively valenced, and the remaining 10 were neutral. Of the 10 neutrally valenced old-type proverbs, 4 associated old age with retirement (e.g., “A young person should collect life for his/her old age”), 4 with wisdom (e.g., “Knowledge is a fortune which cannot be obtained by a turban”), 1 was a general statement relating to old age (“Three times age thirty”), and 1 with warmth (“The body ages but the heart never does”). Of the 31 negatively valenced old-type proverbs, 16 associated old age with a lack of competence (e.g., “One cannot plow a farm with an old ox”), 3 with a lack of adaptability (“One cannot nail on a rotted wood”), 3 with isolation (e.g., “The aged are friendless”), and the remaining 9 with themes of frailty and/or death (e.g., “Life ends at age seventy”). Of the 27 positively valenced old-type proverbs, 1 associated old age with warmth (“Merciful like the old”), 2 with wealth (e.g., “It’s hard to be poor for an old person”), 1 with competence (“A hero becomes a hero in forty years”), 4 with health (e.g., “The mature eggplant does not get ruined by frost”), 7 with respect (e.g., “The one who respects the elderly becomes happy”), and the remaining 12 with wisdom (e.g., “An old fox never steps on a trap”).

Turning to sex-type, the majority (75) were gender-neutral. Five were explicitly male by way of reference to beards or turbans; all five associated older men with wisdom (e.g., “If I did not have a beard, you would not listen to what I have to say”; we acknowledge that these sayings could also alternatively be considered to be based on gender and not age). Of the remaining two that were explicitly female, both were overwhelmingly negative. Strikingly, these proverbs denigrating older women as “worn-out” mirror contemporary conceptualizations of older females relative to older males (Hummert, 1990; Marcus & Fritzsche, 2015).

Operating under the assumption that the most normative cognitions in a society are the most likely to come to mind, we also looked at the frequencies with which our participant pool generated sayings/proverbs, in order to draw parallels between contemporary stereotypes in Turkish culture with those found in the folklore itself. Paralleling previous results, proverbs listed included a mix of positive, negative, and neutrally valenced stereotypes, with the majority of proverbs listed referencing older adults as the focal group, whereas a minority referenced younger adults as the focal group. As shown, the most frequent sayings/proverbs that were generated by our participant pool, by order of frequency, included wisdom (n = 30), frailty/death (n = 28), adaptability (n = 11), competence (n = 11), general positive evaluations of youth (n = 6), health (n = 5), retirement (n = 3), isolation (n = 1), warmth (n = 1), and respect (n = 1). These results paralleled previous results, with old age being seen as a time for retirement and with older adults being viewed as wise, warm, and deserving of respect, but simultaneously frail/nearing death, incompetent, and inadaptable. Thus, the frequency analysis of sayings/proverbs identified by a contemporary sample of Turkish adults confirmed the continuity of stereotype themes found in our Grounded Theory analyses of Turkish folklore.

Discussion

Consequently, stereotype themes emerging from examination of Turkish sayings/proverbs referencing age in Table 3 both mirror contemporary stereotypes (cf. Table 1) and the tales of Nasreddin Hoca (cf. Table 2). Mirroring evidence from contemporary age stereotypes, older individuals are both positively and negatively perceived, with positive stereotypes largely focusing on themes associated with warmth, wisdom, wealth, retirement, and deserving of respect; conversely, negative stereotypes largely cast older individuals as incompetent, inadaptable, and frail/nearing death; older women are perceived more negatively than older men. Mirroring the themes found from analyses of Nasreddin Hoca tales, older individuals are largely described as simultaneously wise, deserving of respect, and endearing, while also being incompetent and frail/nearing death. To the extent that these stereotype themes emerging from analyses of Turkish folklore referencing age mirror those found in contemporary society, we may tentatively infer that the evolutionary and individual-level approach toward ageism is more likely to be correct vis-à-vis the interpersonal and sociocultural approach, insofar as Turkish societal culture is concerned. That is, if ageism is merely a product of modernity, as posited by some (Nelson, 2005), we should not have found stereotype themes highly similar to contemporary ageist stereotypes in our analyses of Turkish folklore.

If the evolutionary and individual-level views hold over their sociocultural and interpersonal counterparts, then interventions to reduce ageism would be well-advised to not treat it as a merely social phenomenon, and devise treatments accordingly, that can take into account the potentially inherent nature of ageism as stemming from a deep-seated and evolutionary fear of death itself. For example, treatments to reduce ageism by focusing on only intergroup relationships have been found not to reduce ageism against older workers (Marcus & Fritzsche, 2014). If ageism in fact had evolutionary roots and occurred intra- and not interindividually, then it would stand to reason that interventions focusing on interpersonally and socioculturally derived group boundaries should fail. By this line of thought, if ageism is intra- and not interpersonally occurring, then interventions to reduce ageism may be more likely to succeed if they focused on changing deeper-seated facets of cognition and implicit memory. Such an approach, termed the structured free recall intervention, and aimed at reducing intraindividual age-based cognitions, has been found to reduce ageism against older workers (Baltes, Bauer, & Frensch, 2007).

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Our results were based upon only one society, that of Ottoman (Anatolian) Turkey. It could be possible that the particular society we chose to study was a fluke of history, and more ageist than the normative preindustrial society; ageism could potentially exist in all societies, but to differing degrees of magnitude. Thus, future research could be conducted with similar types of analyses on other preindustrial cultures, in order to ascertain the generalizability of the current results.

Alternatively, it could still be the case that the sociocultural view may hold in ancient societies that predate the advent of writing because it is possible that writing reduced the role of elders as oral repositories of knowledge. If so, then our data may only reflect the sociocultural reality of views toward older adults in a preindustrial but advanced civilization, that of the Ottoman Turks. Hence, future research could deeper investigate behaviors toward older adults in ancient tribal societies.

Conclusion

Although evidence for ageism abounds, it is unclear whether it is a contemporary sociocultural phenomenon driven by the marginalization of older adults in the post-Industrial Revolution era, or whether it stems from a more deep-seated and evolutionary fear of death. We sought to tackle this question, by analyzing Turkish folklore, to understand the language used to describe older adults in one society that predates the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the society of ancient Anatolia, during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The present results indicate that contemporary stereotypes of older adults were alive and well in that society.

Findings indicated that stereotypes toward older adults found parallels with contemporary samples in one society predating the Industrial Revolution, that of the Ottoman Turks. These data suggest that the notion that ageism against older adults is purely a function of modernity circa the Industrial Revolution is unlikely to be correct; we found the evolutionary view to be supported in the society at hand. Hence, insofar as Anatolian society is concerned, because we found ageism to stand the test of time in that culture, the present results tentatively point toward the evolutionary and individually held views of ageism as opposed to their sociocultural and interpersonally derived counterparts. Given that multiple sources of information triangulated toward the same overarching interpretations, and because the data yielded a coherent framework reflecting stereotypes of older adults in Turkish folklore, we may have some confidence in the current results.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Barbara Fritzsche for her valuable feedback on former versions of this manuscript.

References

Author notes