Localizing the Ambivalent Ageism Scale for Japan

Abstract

Ageism is a complex prejudice involving positive (e.g., perfect grandparent) and negative (e.g., severely impaired) stereotypes of older adults. Several scales have been developed to measure various forms of ageism. However, most have been written in English and created for Western contexts. An exception is the Fraboni Scale (FSA), which was developed in 1970 and translated into Japanese in 2004, and since then it has been used in many studies of ageism. Still, the FSA is based on hostile expressions of ageism and may otherwise be outdated. A newer scale called the Ambivalent Ageism Scale (AAS) was developed in 2017. It incorporates both benevolent and hostile facets of ageism. However, no Japanese translation of the AAS exists yet. To this end, we translated the AAS with two Japanese native speakers and an English native speaker, all of whom were competent in the other language. We then ran an online study with Japanese adults to evaluate the resulting AAS-JP in an ecologically valid questionnaire. We examined the factor structure and internal consistency of the AAS-JP to ensure that it matched the original English version of the AAS. We report on our results and discuss challenges related to localizing research instruments developed in different languages and cultural contexts.