Abstract
This study aimed to identify the content and structure of social representations of aging and the practice of rejuvenation, from the structural approach of social representations. The participants were middle-aged women (N = 30), with favorable and unfavorable attitudes to rejuvenation practices, who responded to two associative networks with the stimulus words: aging and rejuvenation practice. Data were then subjected to lexicographic analysis. The results show that the central nucleus of social representations of aging is organized around losses and gains, whereas the central nucleus of the social representations of the practice of rejuvenation refers to health, beauty and subjective states. Health appears as the organizer of social representations of both objects, linking to elements that refer to the subjective sphere, especially among women unfavorable to rejuvenation practices, and elements related to the body dimension among the favorable ones. It can be concluded that social representations of aging and the practice of rejuvenation are anchored in the ideology of active and successful aging, in which good aging is not only desirable but is established as a norm to be followed.
Social Representations; Aging; Rejuvenation Practice
