Features of the perceived age among representatives of ethno-cultural groups with different appearance

Artamonova Alena Gennadievna ORCID: 0000-0003-2152-8325 Senior Lecturer, Department of Management Psychology and Legal Psychology, Academy of Psychology and Pedagogy of the Southern Federal University 344006, Russia, Rostov region, Rostov-On-Don, Bolshaya Sadovaya str., 105/42 alartamonova@sfedu.ru

Vorontsova Tat'yana Alekseevna ORCID: 0000-0003-1717-7059 PhD in Psychology Associate Professor, Department of Social Psychology, Academy of Psychology and Pedagogy of the Southern Federal University 344006, Russia, Rostov region, Rostov-On-Don, Bolshaya Sadovaya str., 105/42 shkurko@sfedu.ru

Introduction/The problem of research

In recent decades, researchers have recorded a significant increase in the desire of a modern person to look younger than his age. Scientists record both public and scientific interest in the problems of rejuvenation of appearance. There are numerous rejuvenation practices, from plastic surgery to psychological training procedures, the main task of which is the transformation of a person's appearance towards greater youthfulness. In the practice of facial surgeons, there is a whole arsenal of technologies that allow you to remove wrinkles, tighten the oval of the face, etc. At the same time, what a person will look like in the eyes of other people becomes of particular importance. A person's perception of another's age in modern social psychology is considered as a new problem of social psychology, as a special case of social perception ^{[23, 25]}. At the moment, we can state a surge of interest in the study of perceived age (BB) in medicine, genetics, gerontology, psychology and other sciences, which is defined as "the result of social perception of one person by another" ^{[26, p. 79]}, as "the age attributed to a person (object of perception) by another person (subject of perception, appraiser) as a result of perception of his appearance" ^[25].

Our ^[19] analysis of studies in international databases, starting with the first publication of 1974 by J.H. Lawrence ^[36], in which the term "perceived age" ("perceived age") first appears, allowed us to identify two main groups of human BB factors:

1) identification of factors related to the object of perception that influence the construction of its age in the eyes of other people;

2) identification of factors related to the subject of perception that affect the processes of constructing the age of the perceived other.

As part of the study of the first group of BB factors ("perception object factors") The discoveries of recent years have allowed us to draw an important conclusion: human BB is more related to biological age than its chronological age, is a marker of aging and the risk of premature death. Thus, the result of social cognition of one person by another, and BB in this study and many others, is nothing other than the result of social cognition (ordinary people, not experts, acted as "evaluators" of the age of the subjects), turns out to be associated with the most complex biopsychic and psychophysiological processes ^{[30, 41]}.

The construct "perceived age" is a socio-psychological phenomenon, since it cannot be studied outside the context of communication, interaction, social cognition. At the same time, a person's BB sets this very everyday communication and interaction of a person, as it affects the specifics of each of the stages of communication: the formation of the first impression about him; the emergence of role expectations and age attitudes about him; the formation of attitudes towards him; the choice of strategies and forms of communication and interaction, etc.

In Russian psychology: G.M. Andreeva's school of Social Cognition, A.A. Bodalev's school, V.A. Labunskaya's social psychology of appearance, and V.A. Barabanshchikov's communicative approach to the study of cognitive processes in communication revealed socio-psychological patterns of social cognition and human perception, which extend to the perception of another person's age ^{[1, 2, 11, 13, 16, 19]}. In the psychology of social cognition, in particular, it is shown that the main factors of perception of the other are the psychological and socio-psychological characteristics of the subject of perception, the object of perception, the features of the relationship between the subject and the object of perception, the social situation of interaction/

Thus, the problem of studying the laws of the construction of human explosives:

- has a fundamental character, because it refers to the theory of social cognition, the starting point of which is the appearance (IN) of a person as the main source of information about his age. This becomes all the more relevant in the modern era, when VO becomes "a way of visual communication and stratification" ^{[12, p. 36]}.

- has an interdisciplinary status, because it must be solved at the intersection of socio-psychological, cultural-historical, genetic, anthropological, biopsychic, psychophysiological factors of human development.

To date, scientists consider as "factors of the object of perception":

1) socio-ecological factors ^{[34, 38]};

2) medical and aesthetic factors ^{[26, 43]};

3) genetic factors ^[27];

4) psychological factors. As psychological factors of BB, the following were studied: subjective age ^[18]; facial expression of the object of perception ^[9]; the attitude of the object of perception to its external appearance ^[25]; the general well-being of a person and his faith in the future ^[41]; affective experiences of the object of perception during life ^[28]; components of the "big five" and the "dark triad" ^[7]; controlling personality tendencies ^[6].

A separate block of research within the framework of the study of the characteristics of the object of perception belongs to the analysis of various components of the human brain as triggers of perception, evaluation, interpretation of its BB. The "VO Factor" is separated into a separate block due to its dominant position among other factors, huge research interest and the volume of works devoted to it. In a number of our works, the analysis of the differentiated influence of HE components on human explosives has been carried out ^{[3, 4, 25, 26]}.

As part of the study of the second group of BB factors ("perception subject factors") scientists have studied the following characteristics of the subject of perception that affect the processes of constructing the age of the perceived person:

1) gender-age expectations and attitudes ^{[5, 36]};

2) gender and age factors (gender, age) ^{[4, 23, 37, 42]};

3) experience of interaction of the subject of perception with the assessed age group ^[39];

4) special training of the subject of perception of the accuracy of recognizing the age of other people ^[40];

5) features of the perception subject's attitude to his own ^[4];

The ethno-cultural factor of the construction of explosives has been little studied to date. The exception is a number of works carried out by F. Flament and colleagues devoted to the study of gender differences in the aging of the face of Chinese subjects and their connection with BB; French subjects of the Caucasian race and their connection with BB and fatigue; facial characteristics of the face of Korean men and their connection with the perception of age and identification of the look as tired ^{[31, 32, 33]}. In the first study, five main age-related signs of aging of the face of Chinese subjects were identified (wrinkles on the forehead, "crow's feet", nasolabial fold, puppet lines (wrinkles formed by lip-chin skin folds), ptosis of the lower part of the face); it was shown that the aging of the facial skin in Chinese subjects is a linear progression with age, characteristic of both sexes, with the exception of the puppet lines, which are more pronounced and progress faster in women; "evaluators" focus more on the condition of the upper part of the face when perceiving age in Chinese women, and on the lower part of the face in men.

A similar study conducted on a sample of French citizens of the Caucasian race revealed similar trends. A study devoted to the study of the contribution of facial features and tired look to the BB of Korean men of different ages showed that 85% of the subjects were assessed to be 1-15 years older; the most significant contribution to the BB is made by "wrinkles/texture" and "ptosis/sagging" (81%), "pigmentation" (19%); identifying the look as tired increases the BB. In the study of A. Nkengne and colleagues, regression models were built showing the contribution of facial skin characteristics of European women to the prediction of their BB (the greatest contribution is in the eyes, lips and uniform skin color) ^[37].

The studies conducted on Chinese, Korean and French samples of facial aging and the contribution of its components to the BB have not yet been comprehended in the context of traditions, customs of "designing the appearance in accordance with the requirements of an ethnic group" ^[14], practices of "caring for an aging body" ^[8].

In Russian psychology, a team of scientists led by V.A. Labunskaya has developed a model of ethnolucism, which is interpreted as "everyday" discriminatory practice", as discrimination against "ethnic groups based on the type of their appearance constructed in the process of everyday interethnic interaction" ^[14]. The authors of the model distinguish types of appearance ("Slavic type of VO", Caucasian type of VO", "Asian type of VO"); emphasize that the VO of representatives of ethno-cultural groups performs the function of identification, categorization of "their" and "strangers" in the process of interethnic interaction; the VO is a trigger for discrimination.  

The purpose of our study was to identify the influence of the ethno-cultural factor on the construction of the age of an unfamiliar person and the assessment of their BB.

The hypothesis of the study was the assumption that the features of the construction of explosives (another person, one's own) among representatives of ethno-cultural groups that differ in the type of explosives may differ.

The study was carried out within the framework of the socio-psychological approach to V.A. Labunskaya and based on the model of ethnolucism ^[14].

Procedure and methods of research

The main method was the procedure of "Photovideopresentation of the external appearance" by T.A. Vorontsova ^[24]. Especially for this study, together with A.S. Tarasova, we developed a set of photographs to study the ethnic factor of the construction of perceived age, which included 20 portrait photographs (10 men and 10 women) of representatives of various ethnic groups. The photos were freely available on the websites of modeling agencies, social networks, as well as free photo banks. All sites from which the photos were taken to create the kit own exclusive copyrights to the original images. No one has the right to publish, transfer to third parties, participate in the sale or assignment, create derivative products or otherwise use, in part or in full, the content of the sites, except for use for personal non-commercial purposes. In this case, our research falls under the category of non-commercial use. All photos used in the study are referenced at the end of the article to the original source that owns the copyright.

The basis for the creation of this kit was the age periodization of D.B. Elkonin, in which the age period from 17 to 21 years is called "youth", from 21 to 35 years - "youth", from 35 to 60 years — "maturity", from 60 to 75 years - "old age", from 75 to 90 years – "senile age" ^[27]. The photos were selected so that two female and two male faces were represented in each of these age periods.

Then the photos were presented to the participants of the study – subjects of perception in random order to assess the age of the person in the photo (hereinafter referred to as the "model") and the attitude towards him. The age assessment was made using the question: "How old do you think the person in this photo is?". The arithmetic mean of age estimates is the BB of the model. Also, regarding each "model", the study participants were asked the question: "What in the appearance of this person allows you to conclude about his age (choose three reasons)?". As categories of choice, the subjects of perception were offered the following set of criteria for assessing age, highlighted in the work of T.A. Vorontsova and E.G. Nikolaeva: neck, face as a whole, lips, wrinkles, bald spot, pigmentation, facial skin, eyebrows, cheeks / chin, thinness/fullness, hairstyle, beard and mustache, makeup, eyes / gaze, smile, facial expression ^[26]. In the work of T.A. Vorontsova and E.G. Nikolaeva, with the help of content analysis of the statements of perception subjects about the reasons for attributing a particular age to an unfamiliar person, 32 categories of age assessment were identified, half of which (16 categories) related to facial features. This allowed the authors to conclude that the face, as the focus of stable, medium-stable and dynamic components of the VO, acts as the most significant element of the VO when perceiving the age of another person. In this study, we used these 16 categories to study the criteria for assessing the age of a stranger by women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples.  

The attitude to "models" was studied using the "Methodology for the study of conscious personal relationships to each member of the group and to oneself" by T.A. Vorontsova, developed on the basis of the classification of types of relationships that are highlighted in the study by V.V. Stolin, N.I. Golosova and are considered by them as the main coordinates of the emotional relationship of a person to a person: sympathy — antipathy; respect — disrespect; proximity — remoteness ^[20].

The study participants were asked to evaluate their attitude to objects of perception ("models") on three 8-point scales: "Sympathy – Antipathy" (SA), "Respect – Disrespect" (UN), "Proximity – Remoteness" (BO). The scales in our study had the following gradations. CA scale: from 1 to 8 points, 1 point – a minimum of sympathy and a maximum of antipathy to a person, 8 points – a maximum of sympathy and a minimum of antipathy. The other two scales are constructed in a similar way. These figures reflect the intensity of the attitude towards the objects of perception: the higher the score, the higher the intensity of the positive attitude – sympathy, respect, closeness; the lower the score, the higher the intensity of antipathy, disrespect, remoteness. The scales of the methodology are developed according to the type of monopolar Likert scale.

The following methods were also used in the work:

1.                      Questionnaire "Self–assessment of age" by T.A. Vorontsova - used to fix chronological age (XB); subjective age (CB) (answer to the question "how old do you feel now"); self-assessment of perceived age (CB) (answer to the question "how old do you think you look"); desired perceived age (WVV) (the answer to the question is "how old would you like to look"); age estimates by other people (OVV) (the answer to the question is "how old do other people think you look"); estimates of life expectancy (the answer to the question is "what age do you plan to live to?"), as well as to identify socio-demographic characteristics. Nationality was determined by the question: "Who do you consider yourself by nationality?". Based on the data obtained, we calculated the difference between chronological and other types of age, which reflects how old the study participants feel (XB-SV); believe they look (XB-SVV); want to look (XB-ZHVV); report that other people consider them to look (XB-OVB) younger or older than their years.

2.                      The questionnaire "Attitude to one's appearance: satisfaction and concern" by V.A. Labunskaya and E.V. Kapitanova was used to determine the level of satisfaction (UdVO) and concern about one's appearance (OBO), as well as the desire to improve one's appearance (SS) ^[19].

3.                      The methodology of "Strategies for constructing the age of an unfamiliar other" by T.A. Vorontsova – developed to determine the following strategies for constructing the age of an unfamiliar person: 1) "reliance on empathy" (E); 2) "reliance on attraction" (A); 3) "comparison with others" (SD); 4) "comparison with oneself" (S); 5) "identification" (S); 6) "stereotyping" (S); 7) "first impression" (PV). These strategies were determined by choosing the answers "never" (0 points), "rarely" (1 point), "occasionally" (2 points), "sometimes" (3 points), "often" (4 points), usually (5 points) to the following questions:    

1. I pay attention to the emotional state of the person being evaluated and correlate it with that which is characteristic of a person at a certain age (E);

2. I focus, first of all, on whether the person being evaluated is sympathetic to me, and then I start thinking about his age (A);

3. I compare the person being evaluated with people I know, I focus on their age (SD);

4. I compare the person being evaluated with myself, I focus on my age(s);

5. I put myself in the place of the person being evaluated, trying to understand (or remember) how I could look (looked) at his age (And);

6. I compare the person being evaluated with an imaginary group of people at a certain stage of their life path (young/young/mature/elderly/old) (C);

7. I focus on the first impression of a person, I call the figure that comes to my mind (PV).

The subjects of perception were 100 women aged 17 to 33 years (M=23.45), having Slavic or Caucasian type of VO and living in the territory of the Russian Federation. The sample is balanced by type of HE: the first subgroup included 50 women representatives of Slavic peoples who have a Slavic type of HE (Belarusians - 4%, Ukrainians – 14%, Russians – 82%); the second – 50 women representatives of Caucasian peoples who have a Caucasian type of HE (Abkhaz-Adyghe people (Abazinki, Abkhazians) – 4%, Dagestani people (Dagestani, Avark, Darginka, didoyki, lachki, Lezginka, tabasaranki) – 44%, Armenians – 18%, Georgians – 10%, Ingush - 2%, Kabardinki - 6%, Karachay – 2%, Chechens - 14%. By age, all respondents belong to the age stages of "youth" (with Slavic appearance – 7 people (14%), with Caucasian – 16 people (32%) and "youth" (with Slavic appearance – 43 people (86%), with Caucasian – 34 people (68%) according to the classification of D.B. Elkonina. In women with the Slavic type IN Mvp.=23.84; in women with the Caucasian type in Mvp.=23.06.

Table 1 shows photographs of the "models"; their gender, age, nationality and source of receipt are indicated; the number of their presentation to the subjects of perception is indicated; data on the BB of the "model" obtained as a result of the perception of the face of the "models" in each photo is given (the arithmetic mean of all age estimates separately for the first and second subgroups).

Table 1. A set of photographs for studying the ethnic factor of perceived age (the number of the "model", nationality, age, the number of presentation to the subjects of perception (NP), her perceived age (BB first / second subgroup), the source and author of the photo (if available)

Research results

Comparative analysis of self-assessment of age, planned life expectancy, attitude to their appearance among women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples

At the first stage of data processing, we conducted a comparative analysis of the studied indicators of age, planned life expectancy, attitude to their appearance among women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples according to the Mann-Whitney criterion, the results of which are shown in Tables 1-3. 

Table No. 1. Comparative analysis of age self–assessment indicators among women representatives of Slavic peoples (group 1) and Caucasian peoples (group 2) according to the Mann-Whitney criterion.

Table No. 2. Comparative analysis of the indicator of life expectancy among women representatives of Slavic peoples (group 1) and Caucasian peoples (group 2) according to the Mann-Whitney criterion.

Table No. 3. Comparative analysis of the parameters of attitude to their appearance among women representatives of Slavic peoples (group 1) and Caucasian peoples (group 2) according to the Mann-Whitney criterion.

Analysis of the data obtained shows that representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples demonstrate a fairly high satisfaction with their appearance (7.72 points in the first subgroup and 8.17 points in the second subgroup), moderate concern with their appearance (5.06 and 5.23, respectively) and a fairly high desire to improve their appearance (7.17 points / 7.68 points). There were no differences in the severity of the parameters of the attitude to one's appearance. Significant differences were found in the parameter XB-SVB (the difference between chronological age and self-assessment of perceived age): if the first subgroup has 2.46, then the second one has 0.46. Women representatives of Slavic peoples believe that they look much younger than their children, and the self–assessment of the perceived age of representatives of Caucasian peoples is close to their chronological age. At the same time, both would like to look younger than their years by an average of 3 years (2.8 years in the first subgroup and 2.57 years in the second). Significant differences in the planned life expectancy were also found: the difference in it is 8 years at M=84.09 in the first subgroup and M=76.08 in the second.

Comparative analysis of the evaluation of the age of a stranger and the attitude towards him among women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples

At the second stage of processing, we compared for each "model" the assessment of her age (perceived age) and attitude to her on the scales of CA, UN and BO for women of the first and second subgroups according to the Mann-Whitney criterion (Table 4).

Table No. 4. Comparative analysis of indicators for assessing the age of "models" and attitudes towards them among women representatives of Slavic peoples (group 1) and Caucasian peoples (group 2) according to the Mann-Whitney criterion

Analysis of the data obtained shows that, firstly, significant differences were found in the assessment of the age of models 2J (youth, 21 years), 6J (youth, 32 years) and 11M (maturity, 48 years): the perceived age of a mature man in the subgroup of representatives of Slavic peoples is significantly higher than in the group of Caucasian women; the age of young and young women, on the contrary, is much lower.

The most interesting data were obtained when assessing their attitude to "models". Of the 20 "models", significant differences were found in relation to two "models" - 5J (youth, 28 years) and 8M (youth, 28 years), having a Caucasian type of appearance. Female representatives of Caucasian peoples demonstrate more intense sympathy, respect and closeness to a young woman with a Caucasian type of appearance than representatives of Slavic peoples with a sufficiently high level of intensity of the studied relationship modalities in both groups. In relation to a young man with a Caucasian type of appearance, representatives of Caucasian peoples also show more intense respect than women representatives of Slavic peoples.

Further, at this stage of the study, we turned to a comparative analysis of age assessment criteria. The total number of categories indicated by women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples as criteria for assessing the age of all the proposed "models" (including the answer option - "other") was calculated – they turned out to be 3484 and 3031, respectively, and then the relative representation (in percent) of each category in the structure of age perception was calculated. This made it possible to compare the core and periphery of the structure of age perception in both subgroups (Table 5 and Figure 1). It turned out that both the core and the periphery of the structure of age perception in both subgroups are similar.

Table 5. Comparative analysis of the relative share of age assessment criteria in the structure of the perception of the age of an unfamiliar other by his face in subsamples of women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples

Figure 1. Comparative analysis of the relative share of age assessment criteria in the structure of the perception of the age of an unfamiliar other by his face in subsamples of women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples

In both subgroups, the main criteria occupying the first five places in the structure of age perception are "face as a whole", "eyes/gaze", "wrinkles", "facial skin", "facial expression".  The periphery in both subgroups is occupied by similar criteria: "beard and mustache"; "lips"; "cheeks", "chin"; "pigmentation"; "eyebrows"; "smile"; "thinness /fullness"; "bald spot"; "makeup". The results obtained are clearly presented in Figure 1.

To identify the specifics of the perception of the age of an unfamiliar other, we grouped the data obtained by gender-age characteristics of objects of perception: first, we analyzed the relative proportion of age assessment criteria in the structure of the perception of the age of "models"-men /women, as well as "models" aged 18-38 years (it included all "models" of the age period "youth", "youth", as well as one "model" from the "maturity" period) and 48-83 years (included three "models" of the "maturity" age period, as well as all "models" of the elderly and senile age). The results are presented in Tables 6 and 7.

Table 6. Comparative analysis of the relative share of age assessment criteria in the structure of the perception of the age of an unfamiliar man / woman in subsamples of women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples

Table 7. Comparative analysis of the relative share of age assessment criteria in the structure of age perception of models aged 18-38 years and 48-83 years in subsamples of women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples

The analysis of the structure of the perception of the age of an unfamiliar other, differentiated by gender and age characteristics, shows that it is similar among representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples; at the same time, the share of the undifferentiated criterion "face as a whole" among representatives of Caucasian peoples is significantly higher along all lines of comparison.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the structure of age perception changes in both subgroups when the gender of the perceived subject changes. So, when perceiving the age of a man, the first five places of the criteria are occupied by "the face as a whole", "wrinkles", "eyesight", "beard and mustache" and "facial expression"; when perceiving the age of a woman in both groups, "facial skin" comes out in third place, and also appears in 6th place "neck" is a criterion that practically does not appear in the perception of a man's age.

Next, we undertook Spearman's correlation analysis between the age attributed to the "models" and the attitude towards them in both subsamples separately (Tables 8 and 9).

Table 8. Significant correlations between the age attributed to the "models" and the attitude towards them in a subsample of women representatives of Slavic peoples

Table 9. Significant correlations between age attributed to "models" and attitudes towards them in a subsample of Caucasian women

Analysis of the data obtained shows that for a number of "models", the attitude towards them is associated with the age attributed to them, and the main trend of such a relationship is: sympathy, respect and closeness the higher the lower the age attributed to the models. We were particularly interested in the attitude to "model" No. 5, according to which we found significant differences in the attitude of representatives of both subgroups to it. According to subsample No. 1, the age attributed to her and the attitude towards her turned out to be inversely correlated with all the modalities of relations: sympathy, respect and closeness in the subsample of women representatives of Slavic peoples was the higher the lower the age attributed to this model. In subsample No. 2, a similar trend was found with respect to the "sympathy" modality - it was the higher the lower the perceived age of the "model".

Comparative analysis of strategies for constructing the age of the unknown other among women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples

To identify the specifics of strategies for constructing the age of the unknown other other in women representatives of Slavic and Caucasian peoples, we applied the Mann–Whitney criterion (Table 10), and also calculated the arithmetic mean of each strategy to determine the ranks of representation of each strategy.

Table No. 10. Comparative analysis of strategies for constructing the age of the unknown other in women representatives of Slavic peoples (group 1) and Caucasian peoples (group 2) according to the Mann-Whitney criterion

Among women representatives of Slavic peoples, strategies in terms of ranks were distributed as follows (Figure 2): 1st rank (place) - first impression (3.12 points); 2nd place – comparison with others (3.12); 3rd place – stereotyping (2.88); 4th place - comparison with oneself (2.84); 5th place - reliance on empathy (2.34); 6th place – attraction (2.12) and 7th place – identification (1.5).

Among the Caucasian women, strategies in terms of ranks were distributed in a similar way: 1st rank (place) - first impression (2.6); 2nd place – comparison with others (2.56); 3rd place – stereotyping (2.22); 4th place - reliance on empathy (2.14); 5th place - comparison with by itself (2.08); 6th place – attraction (2.04) and 7th place – identification (1.5). Significant differences in the severity of strategies were found for the strategies "comparison with others" and "comparison with oneself", they are much more pronounced in the first subgroup (at the significance level of 0.05), as well as the strategy "stereotyping" (at the trend level of 0.07).

Figure 2. Comparative analysis of strategies for constructing the age of the unknown other among women representatives of Slavic peoples (group 1) and Caucasian peoples (group 2) by statistical mean (µ)

Discussion of the results

Let's try to explain some specific results of the conducted research. For example, the presence of differences in the planned life expectancy can be partly explained by the differences in the formal characteristics of the time perspective found in the work of K.V. Martirosyan in Russians and Armenians ^[15]. It was found that the Armenian sample is more focused on the "hedonistic present". The author emphasizes that the time perspective as a certain relationship of the present, future and past is subject to socio-cultural and ethno-cultural, as well as age, gender and individual variations.

An interesting study by T.V. Ugl'ova and E.E. Bolshakova shows that, from the point of view of Armenians, their culture is more oriented towards the past when making decisions, has the priority of traditions; Russians and Chechens perceive their cultures oriented towards the future, but at the same time the past, history and traditions are also significant ^[22]. The authors conclude that modern Russian culture is more focused on the future, people are actively making plans and implementing them. Perhaps this explains the time perspective associated with a longer planned life expectancy for women representatives of Slavic peoples.

On a number of "models" (of different ages, genders and nationalities), we found a common trend for both subgroups: the younger an unfamiliar other is perceived, the higher the sympathy, respect and closeness to him, and vice versa, the more years are attributed to an unfamiliar other, the lower the sympathy, respect, closeness, which can be interpreted as "age-related stigmatization", which can manifest itself through the actualization of age-related stereotypes and prejudices towards older people by the type of benevolent and hostile ageism ^{[8, 35]}. At the same time, many works show that the institution of seniority, respect for elders is of great importance for the Caucasian peoples ^{[17, 21]}. For example, M. Tabidze., B. Shavkhelishvili emphasize that in the literary language of Georgians and Vainakhs there are practically no ironic slogans addressed to the elderly ^[21]. In the work of E. Diaz and E. Arsentieva (2018), on the contrary, showed that there is a significant number of Russian phraseological units that disparagingly or contemptuously characterize old people, both men and women ^[10]. The trend described above (the relationship of perceived age and sympathy, respect, closeness) manifested itself in relation to "models" of different genders, ages and nationalities, which may indicate the presence of facts of ageism even when cultivating the institution of seniority due to the traditions and customs of the culture of the Caucasian peoples.

Conclusion and conclusions

The study revealed the influence of the subjects of perception belonging to an ethno-cultural group associated with the type of appearance (Slavic type of VO / Caucasian type of VO) on the self-assessment of perceived age, planned life expectancy, attitude to unfamiliar others (the severity of sympathy, antipathy, closeness), which have the features of appearance, acting as a trigger mechanism for the manifestation of the phenomena of ingroup favoritism and outgroup hostility. We also found a tendency to "rejuvenate" men and "age" women, characteristic of women representatives of the Caucasian peoples (in comparison with Slavic women).

We found a common trend for both subgroups: the younger an unfamiliar other is perceived, the higher the sympathy, respect and closeness to him, and vice versa, which we interpret as "age stigmatization" by the type of benevolent or hostile ageism.

The structure of the perception of the age of an unfamiliar other (in general, as well as taking into account the gender-age factor) is identical in terms of central and peripheral categories. The first five places are occupied by: 1 – the face as a whole; 2 – eyes / gaze; 3 – wrinkles; 4 – facial skin; 5th place – facial expression. When comparing the structure of the perception of the age of an unfamiliar man / woman, both subgroups have identical gender (from the point of view of the object of perception) differences. When perceiving the age of a man, the first five places of the criteria are occupied by "face as a whole", "wrinkles", "eyesight", "beard and mustache" and "facial expression"; when perceiving the age of a woman in both groups, "facial skin" comes out in third place, and "neck" appears in 6th place" is a criterion that practically does not appear in the perception of a man's age.

We have tested the methodology for identifying strategies for constructing the perceived age. It is shown that in both groups the strategies of "reliance on the first impression", "comparison with others", "stereotyping" prevail (a number of significant differences in strategies in terms of frequency of use are found – in women of Slavic nationalities, the strategies of "comparison with others", "comparison with oneself" and "stereotyping" are more often actualized).  

In the work, a set of photographs was tested to study the influence of the ethno-cultural factor on the perceived age. Advantages of this kit: 1) all photos are aligned in terms of the attractiveness of the appearance of the "models"; 2) the gender and age range of the set (at each age stage, 2 female and 2 male photo images of the face are presented, as well as the presence of photos in them that differ in the type of appearance ("Slavic type", "Caucasian type"). The limitation of the kit is that not at every age stage there is a complete set of photos with the representation of various types of appearance.

It was found that the process of constructing the age of an unfamiliar other is not sufficiently realized by the perceiving subject (in the structure of perception there is a significant proportion of the undifferentiated category "person as a whole" when perceiving the age of an unfamiliar other, as well as the leading strategy for constructing the perceived age is "first impression" (subjects focus on the first impression of a person, call the figure that comes to mind), which sets us the task of identifying unconscious mechanisms and strategies for constructing age.

Links to electronic resources – sources of photographs for creating a set of procedures for "Photo-visual presentation of appearance":

1J – [Electronic resource] – URL https://www.instagram.com/re .krylovaa/?hl=cs *

(* Recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the territory of the Russian Federation)

2J - RM Management - [Electronic resource] – URL https://www.ratemodelmanagement.com

3M – RAWPIXEL - [Electronic resource] – URL Adult Man Serene Face Expression | Premium Photo - rawpixel

4M – SUPER.RU - [Electronic resource] – URL https://super.ru/a/dulatovs

5J – Project "The Origins of Armenian beauty" - [Electronic resource] – URL https://www.instagram.com/armenianoriginsofthenation/?utm_medium=copy_link

(Recognized as an extremist organization and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation)

6J – Project "MORE YOU MIGHT LIKE" - [Electronic resource] – URL HTTPS://OBLIVIATEDRACO.TUMBLR.COM/POST/155633532297

7M – Catalog of the AV Production modeling agency - [Electronic resource] – URL - Samvel Tadevosyan (avproduction.am )

8M – Catalog of the modeling agency VPROJECT - [Electronic resource] – URL Aslan (vprojectmodels.com )

9J – RAWPIXEL - [Electronic resource] – URL Portrait of a Russian woman | Free Photo - rawpixel

10J, 11M, 12M, 13J, 14J, 15M, 17J, 18J, 19M, 20M – Catalog of persons of the agency Oldushka - [Electronic resource] – URL OLDUSHKA (tilda.ws )

16M – News.myseldon.com - [Electronic resource] – URL https://news.myseldon.com/en/dossier/person/24219061/main