Worry influences how we perceive and interpret new information. By filtering and distorting information to protect his or her belief systems, the worrier lowers the probability that new experience will result in new learning and, thus, personal growth is greatly reduced. This study's major concern was to investigate the relationship between knowledge of aging and worry about the aging process among older and younger adults in Israel. Worry adds additional difficulty to daily living, interferes with problem‐solving ability, and lowers quality of life. The present study investigates the relationship between realistic, accurate knowledge of the aging process and the degree of worry experienced by older adults. The findings indicate that there is a clear and consistently significant relationship between years of education and both knowledge of aging and degree of worry about the commonly held negative stereotyped beliefs regarding old age. The main finding of this study is that knowledge of aging is consistently associated with lower worry scores. The better educated respondents and those better informed about the facts on aging were found less vulnerable to worrisome beliefs that are inaccurate or have low probability of occurrence. The findings suggest the importance of increasing knowledge on aging through educational programming. Increased knowledge on aging can provide older persons with anticipatory socialization that can moderate stressful future events and make extreme worry an unnecessary and avoidable condition.
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Shimshon Neikrug (1998) studied this question.
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