Ageism in Birthday Cards: A Mixed Method Content Analysis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Ageism is oftentimes sugarcoated within humor. Paper birthday cards are one delivery approach in which ageist messages are perpetuated and reinforced through humor.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A convenience sample of birthday cards (k = 227), all indicating a decade of age, were acquired from seven national retail stores in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The decades sampled ranged from 21 to 100. With a pre-developed codebook, three raters coded the decade birthday cards on various variables, including age group, ageist tone, and humor.

RESULTS: Birthday cards intended for age 30 to 60 contained significantly more ageist messages compared to cards intended for age 21 and age 70 to 100, which did not show a significant difference from each other. Additionally, birthday cards with humor showed more ageist messages than cards without humor. Characteristics of decade birthday cards were also explored.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Consumers need to learn to evaluate these ageist messages in birthday cards to reduce the perpetuation of damaging stereotypes.