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Intergenerational interactions outside of family relationships are relatively rare. In a time of political and economic divisions, limited intergenerational interactions may foster intergenerational misunderstandings and discord. Generation to Generation, a course for older (age 55+) and younger (18 to 30-year-old) adults, was designed to promote positive intergenerational contact. Pre- and post-course questionnaires assessing allophilia, liking for another group, were distributed so that all students in the course rated both younger and older targets. Pre-course, both older and younger students reported greater comfort and kinship for their own age group but greater engagement with the other age group. Post-course, younger students showed significant increases in affection, comfort, kinship, engagement and enthusiasm for older people, whereas older students' ratings for younger adults remained stable. Results suggest intergenerational interactions in a classroom setting may increase younger adults' liking for older adults. It is imperative that the generations work together to solve pressing societal issues such as how to support an aging population or protect the changing planet. A course like Generation to Generation may be a first step in facilitating quality intergenerational interactions that promote greater understanding and cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaningful intergenerational interactions between older and younger adults are rare outside of family relationships. Interventions to increase positive intergenerational interactions are growing, but finding appropriate measures of attitudes toward both younger and older age groups is difficult. Many measures assessing attitudes toward older adults can remind participants of negative stereotypes of aging and are rarely used to assess attitudes toward younger adults. We adapted Pittinsky, Rosenthal, and Montoya’s allophilia measure to assess attitudes toward younger (18–25 years old) and older (over age 65) adults. In the first study, 94 traditional college age and 52 older adults rated older and younger adults. The allophilia measure distinguished between younger and older adults’ attitudes toward each age group. In the second study, we compared the age-related allophilia measures with seven traditional measures of attitudes toward older adults. Forty-seven traditional college age students completed measures. As predicted, correlations between allophilia toward older adults and the traditional semantic differential measures were weak (i.e.,r = |0.15|or less), whereas correlations with general attitudes toward older adults were more moderate (r = 0.59 or less). Correlations between allophilia toward younger adults and the traditional measures were primarily non-significant as predicted. The allophilia measure differentiated between the five domains of positive attitudes toward younger and older adults and was not highly correlated with measures of more negative attitudes toward older adults. Results suggest that the allophilia measure can fill a need for a measure of positive attitudes toward older and younger adults. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]