How a perceived lack of traditional values makes minorities seem younger

People tend to stereotype sexual minorities and Black men as unusually young, an assumption driven by a shared cultural belief that these groups lack traditional values. This overlapping set of perceptions functions to paint certain demographics as inherent threats to the social order. The research was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

In the early 1970s, sociologist Stanley Cohen popularized the term “folk devils” to describe groups targeted by media-driven moral panic. Cohen analyzed how dominant institutions focused on youth subcultures, turning them into symbols of societal decay. Through these portrayals, young people were framed as actively rejecting established norms and threatening the existing social fabric.

New York University Abu Dhabi psychology researcher Jaime L. Napier and her colleagues suspected that similar societal forces shape modern stereotypes of adult minority groups. They predicted that other marginalized populations would be stereotyped in age-related ways because of parallel cultural assumptions about their core values.

Previous psychological studies have often focused on a single element of identity at a time, looking at race or gender in isolation. This singular approach misses the subtle ways that multiple social categories overlap to form entirely different public expectations. For instance, the behavioral traits people associate with a broad racial category might closely match expectations for men but fail to describe the cultural stereotypes applied to women of the same race.

To capture a fuller picture of public bias, the research team examined the combined effects of gender, sexual orientation, and race on age-related assumptions. Over a series of experiments, the researchers asked participants to evaluate a standardized list of 99 personality traits. The participants indicated which traits they believed belonged to the cultural stereotypes of different demographic profiles.

These profiles ranged from generic categories, like young people or men, to highly specific intersections, like gay Asian men or straight Black women. To ensure their analysis reflected broader cultural narratives rather than hidden personal prejudice, the researchers explicitly asked respondents to identify what the average American would think.

The team first established baseline ratings for exactly what traits the public believes define stereotypical youth and stereotypical adherence to traditional American values. Traits heavily connected to youth included descriptors like naive, impulsive, loud, and pleasure-loving. Traits linked to high traditionalism included descriptors like conservative, conventional, nationalistic, and loyal to family ties. The researchers then mapped these baseline ratings onto the specific traits chosen for various racial and sexual minority groups.

In the first sets of tests, the team compared the traits assigned to gay targets against those assigned to straight targets or individuals with no specified sexual orientation. They found that participants consistently judged gay men and lesbian women as possessing more youth-related traits than their heterosexual counterparts. Statistical modeling revealed that this overlapping stereotype was explained almost entirely by a perceived lack of traditional values.

Because the general public views sexual minorities as untraditional, they casually link them to the chaotic, energetic traits usually reserved for young people. Labeling a target as straight had the opposite effect, cementing traits associated with older ages and high traditionalism.

The researchers then introduced racial categories into the experiment, asking a new group of participants to select stereotyped traits for White and Black groups. The results demonstrated that Black men without a specified sexual orientation were already ascribed as many youth-related traits as gay White men. Because Black men are already saddled with a cultural stereotype of youthful nonconformity, explicitly labeling a Black male target as gay did not alter the perception of his youth beyond its already high baseline.

This finding provides a missing link for older psychological studies regarding implicit bias. Past research has shown that the public tends to associate Black men with aggression and danger, but these biases fade when participants are shown photographs of elderly Black men. The new study suggests that the cultural default assumption for a Black man is inherently a youthful one.

The perceived lack of traditional values once again accounted for this overlap. The public tends to stereotype both gay people and Black men as differing from traditional American norms, leading to the assumption that they share youthful characteristics.

When the researchers looked closer at the specific flavors of these stereotypes, they found nuanced differences. The youthful stereotype applied to gay men was heavily driven by assumptions of nonconformity and high extraversion. In contrast, the youthful stereotype associated with Black men was distinctly linked with an assumed lack of conscientiousness.

A final study expanded the experimental design to include Asian targets. Unlike the other profiles, Asian men and women without a specified sexual orientation were assigned far more old traits than young traits. Their cultural stereotype aligned heavily with traditional values, framing them as a kind of anti-folk devil.

This reflects historical media narratives that have routinely depicted Asian Americans as a model minority defined by diligence, quietness, and strict conventionality. In the middle of the twentieth century, American media often emphasized the achievements of Asian communities to subtly suggest that societal struggles in African American communities were cultural failures rather than the result of systemic racism. The model minority concept became the structural opposite of the folk devil. By associating the entire Asian demographic with older, traditional traits, the public distances them from the youth-oriented panic that defines other minority groups.

Even for this highly conventionalized group, introducing a minority sexual orientation fundamentally altered their stereotypical profile. When Asian targets were labeled as gay or lesbian, participant selections shifted away from older, traditional traits and moved rapidly toward younger, untraditional ones. A minoritized sexual orientation effectively erased the presumed traditionalism of the racial category.

The authors note several limitations to the current work. The surveyed participants were overwhelmingly White and heterosexual, meaning the data primarily captures the cultural perspective of dominant societal groups. Future investigations should recruit more diverse sample populations to determine if marginalized group members hold the same age-related stereotypes about themselves and their peers.

The researchers also pointed out that their statistical models were generally less effective at explaining the stereotypes applied to women compared to men. While lesbian targets were viewed as younger than their straight counterparts, the shift was not as easily accounted for by a lack of traditional values. This indicates that societal expectations of femininity might complicate these rapid cultural judgments.

Experiencing these cultural assumptions can have real consequences for the targeted communities. The persistent association of minorities with youthful traits could contribute to the well-documented anxiety surrounding aging within the gay community, leading to isolation or distress as individuals grow older. If society expects gay men to be permanently young, those who do age might feel as if they are losing their social visibility. A better understanding of how society blends sexual orientation, race, and age stereotypes might help clinical psychologists support patients navigating multi-layered discrimination throughout entirely different stages of their lives.

The study, “Folk devils? Perceived lack of traditional values explains youth-related stereotypes of sexual minorities and Black men,” was authored by Jaime L. Napier, Maria Laura Bettinsoli, Rosandra Coladonato, Magdalena Formanowicz, and Andrea Carnaghi.