Observation Of Ageism In Starbucks

On the morning of the 2nd, my group and I observed behavior regarding ageism and adultism at the Starbucks location in the Circle. It was difficult for me at first to distinguish what sort of behavior could fall under either social construct. I suppose this had to do more with me assuming that the location in which we observed needed to have more variety in the age of its occupants. As time went on though, I began to notice a few minor incidents in which the behaviors of younger people (aged under 25 and predominantly teen-aged in this case) and older people (aged over 25) differed in what I think are interesting ways. From the very beginning of my observation, I noticed that there was a group of seemingly teen-aged couples occupying a longer
What happened is that the disabled woman (who was in an electric wheelchair) decided not to buy anything while in line and made the effort to back up out of the way and let the younger woman go ahead of her. The woman made no eye or physical contact at all; she merely stepped out of the way and looked straight ahead. I saw the older woman’s “thank you” go unnoticed and no one moved to open the door for her on the way out. It did not particularly bother me that no one opened the door for her because I am sure she was fine doing that on her own, but what irked me was the fact that it seems like the younger woman completely ignored the older woman’s existence. It reminded me of how in the ageism chapter it says “The individual elder is affected by… social and cultural attitudes and values…” (Larabee, n.d., p. 572). I believe that usually society sees older people as being “dependent” like the chapter says towards the middle section of page 572 and that because of this belief, they need to be helped more. I think that what I saw happen between the two women was the complete opposite of what is usually seen in society. I had expected to see the younger woman to open the door for her and give into ageism or to at least acknowledge the older woman’s presence, but this
I believe this happened because as I reflect on my personal thoughts regarding the behavior of the group of teenagers to be kind of adultist. I feel this was the case because I saw a lot of their behavior as annoying and blamed it on their age. I think that if I had seen a group of adults do the same, I would not have minded as much. I think that another reason it was harder to see ageism and adultism at the location is because the people that go there are usually around the same age. There were no interactions between a child and an adult or between a teenager and an adult, so it made it harder for me to connect it to our class discussions. I do believe that I was able to take note of differences in behavior when comparing older and younger people. I do also think that my observations can relate to the constructs of ageism and adultism because of the way that I perceived the behaviors of the teenagers through an adultist