Attitudes to Aging Questionnaire

An ageism scale, such as the Fraboni Scale of Ageism, measures prejudice and negative attitudes directed at older people, usually held by others and reflecting stereotypes, avoidance, and discrimination. The AAQ instead measures how older respondents view their own experience of ageing, across loss, physical change, and growth. One is about attitudes toward an out-group; the other is about a person's self-directed perception. They can be related, since internalized ageism may colour self-attitudes, but they are conceptually distinct and answer different research questions.

The AAQ has 24 items divided equally into three eight-item subscales: psychosocial loss, physical change, and psychological growth. Respondents rate agreement on a five-point Likert scale, negatively keyed items (chiefly in the loss subscale) are reverse-scored, and the eight items in each domain are summed. Scoring is arranged so that a higher subscale total always indicates a more positive attitude on that dimension. The three scores are typically reported and analysed separately, because an individual can hold different attitudes across the domains.

Because ageing is not experienced only as decline. The developers deliberately built in a psychological-growth subscale to capture genuinely positive aspects of getting older, such as accumulated wisdom, perspective, acceptance, and a sense of continued development. Without it, the questionnaire would reduce ageing to loss and physical change and miss an important, well-being-relevant part of older adults' self-perception. The growth subscale lets researchers detect people who, despite physical difficulties, view their ageing as a time of personal gain, a pattern that matters for mental health and intervention.