If we accept that aged people are surrounded by a society that assigns them false images and that they are therefore trapped in a labyrinth of distorting mirrors, then the question arises of what self-conception they can possibly project. According to the concept of the ‘looking glass self’ (Mead 1934; Cooley 1972) we see ourselves as we imagine others see us, and therefore the behaviour of older people and their attitudes towards themselves are shaped and reinforced by society's prevailing images of them. By adopting these images, the elderly in turn confirm and strengthen them.

Old people, for example, are thought to dress in drab, uniform clothing appropriate to the dull world in which they are considered to live. Many elderly people, upon accepting the label of ‘aged’, do indeed change their style of dress. Those who are reluctant to alter their appearance or prefer the fashionable arouse derision or surprise. A more extreme example is the physical limitations which older people adopt once they accept their definition as aged. Some may begin to stoop and shuffle, others may develop hearing deficiencies that have no apparent physiological basis (a kind of ‘social deafness’ that develops when people consciously or unconsciously choose not to hear). Some complain of deteriorating vision, others adopt movements characteristic of the physically handicapped in the absence of any such serious limitations (Esberger 1978; Levy 1979).