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The relationship between age and promotion orientation depends on POWS. Note. POWS = perceived older worker stereotype. Very positive and less positive represent values ±1 SD from the grand mean, respectively. * p ≤ .05.
Source publication
Objectives
Research has consistently revealed a negative relationship between chronological age and promotion orientation, that is, the motivational orientation toward approaching possible gains. In addition, experimental research has demonstrated that activating positive self-relevant stereotypes (e.g., for men, the stereotype that men are good at...
Citations
... There is a significant association between a positive social climate and the improved mental health of various social groups, including sexual minorities (Lick et al., 2012), adolescents (Kuperminc et al., 2001), and Hispanic older adults (Brown et al., 2009). An increase in age does not result in a decrease in the motivation of workers if they perceive that there is a positive work environment for older workers in their teams (Bowen & Staudinger, 2013), suggesting that a positive social climate can encourage and motivate workers to pursue their goals. Additionally, a positive social climate can improve individuals' mental health by increasing psychological resources like self-esteem and perceived social support or ties (Brown et al., 2009;Coelho et al., 2020) and decreasing the likelihood of being exposed to social stressors such as discrimination and prejudice (Vauclair et al., 2016). ...
Objectives
This study examines the relationships between age discrimination, perceived social respect for older adults as a proxy of perceived social climate, and depressive symptoms in older adults in Korea. In doing so, it clarifies whether and how age discrimination has a differential effect on mental health, depending on the level of perceived social respect.
Method
This study uses multiple regression analyses to examine the data obtained from the 2020 National Survey of Older Koreans, a nationally representative survey.
Results
Findings show that age discrimination was positively associated with depressive symptoms, whereas perceived social respect for older adults was negatively associated with depressive symptoms. Older respondents exhibited fewer depressive symptoms if they felt that older adults were respected in Korea. The results also revealed a significant interaction between age discrimination and perceived social respect; age discrimination had a more harmful impact on depressive symptoms in older adults with a higher level of perceived social respect.
Discussion
The findings suggest that a positive social climate for older adults is beneficial to their mental health, but ironically, it may form a more stressful context for older adults who experience age discrimination that is characteristically opposite from their subjective evaluation of that social climate. The gap between the expected social climate and individual discriminatory experiences may have a deleterious effect on the mental health of older adults.
... This effect might be amplified as age increases. For example, there is evidence that workers who have been previously promoted, are more likely to promote again (Machado & Portela, 2013), which generate a decrease in orientation or motivation towards promotion (Bowen & Staudinger, 2013;Harris et al., 2017). So, it is expected that if a worker does not have the experience of promotion in his or her career, when becoming older the probability of promoting decreases dramatically, or it is considered only as a product of chance. ...
Negative stereotypes about older workers can result in different types of age discrimination. The aim of this study was to run a transcultural adaptation and validation of the Nordic Age Discrimination Scale (NADS) into Spanish. Three independent samples of Chilean (N = 301), Colombian (N = 150), and Spanish (N = 209) workers over the age of 45, from different sectors and professional categories, answered a questionnaire including the NADS scale, measures of perceptions of inequality, workplace harassment and several scales related to outcome variables to test criterion and construct validity. The reliability index for the NADS was .85, a similar value for both Cronbach's alpha (α) and McDonald's omega (ω). CFA by country suggest good fit of this single-dimension structure in a final version of 5 items, and it presents scalar invariance; using the modification indices, partial invariance is achieved at the level of the variance of the errors. Both criterion and construct validity were verified, with strong evidence for criterion validity, and moderate results for construct validity. Therefore, the Spanish version of NADS had a single-dimension structure and adequate psychometric properties being a useful tool in measuring perceptions of age discrimination in different countries.
... Similar to the results of the previous researchers (Bowen & Staudinger, 2012), our results contribute to contextual perspective (confirming the crucial role of organizational support for learning) for employee development, especially when managing older employees, and thus contributing to Social Learning Theory. ...
For last decades, lifelong-learning has been receiving growing attention as playing a crucial role in active ageing social policies. Due to numerous controversial research findings regarding older employees’ continuous learning, our work focuses on comparing older vs. younger employees in terms of their motivation (willingness) to learn and outcomes that result from learning and training processes. Our results do not show statistically significant differences in learning results of both groups of employees, neither nor in general motivation for learning. However, the results show that older employees engage in learning less to fulfil their career goals and more to improve their work efficiency as well as facilitate knowledge transfer to the workplace. The crucial role of perceived organizational support for older employees’ continuous learning and training at workplace is further discussed. Key words: workforce aging, older employees, motivation for learning, age management.
... For example, if older workers perceive themselves to be viewed as less ready for learning-and change-oriented APM methodologies such as Scrum, they will be more likely to activate those stereotypes and will indeed show less readiness for Scrum. In line with this hypothesizing, Bowen and Staudinger (2013) found that a negative relationship between age and promotion orientation-that is, the orientation toward advancement, growth, accomplishment (Higgins, 1998)-only existed among employees who perceived a more negative age climate. ...
... In line with previous research on age climate (see Bowen & Staudinger, 2013), we controlled for age climate regarding younger employees. The aim was to increase confidence that the proposed interactions between age climate and readiness for Scrum are specific to the perceived age climate regarding older workers and not to the social climate in general. ...
While demographic change is leading to an aging workforce in many parts of the world, more and more companies are implementing agile forms of collaboration. These enable better adaptation to change through constant, iterative learning but require a corresponding mindset from the employees. According to meta-analytical findings, willingness to learn is negatively correlated with employee age, whereas willingness to change is not. We examined the relationship between employee age and readiness for change toward Scrum—the predominant framework of agile project management—focusing on moderating effects. We hypothesized that readiness for Scrum does not decrease with employee age per se, but that it depends on age climate and subjective age. Using an animated explainer video, we created a scenario in which Scrum gets implemented in the participants’ work area. We tested our hypotheses using two studies with age-heterogeneous samples (N1 = 146, N2 = 198), differing in their mean ages (M1 = 36.9, M2 = 41.6). Across studies, and consistent with expectations, readiness for Scrum increased with age when employees reported lower levels of subjective age. Regarding age climate, the results were mixed: In Study 1, readiness for Scrum increased with age when participants perceived a more negative age climate, whereas in Study 2, it increased in a more positive age climate. Results of the three-way interaction in Study 1 suggest a complex interplay between age identity and age climate. We interpret these results in light of existing theory and discuss possible implications for research and practice.
... regarding psychotherapeutic care (Kessler and Schneider 2017;Kessler and Blachetta 2018). Similarly, in the workforce older employees often face age stereotypes about their (limited) potential to learn and master change, which in turn limits their opportunities for career growth and further training (Bowen and Staudinger 2013;Chui et al. 2001;Van Daalen et al. 2010). ...
... For instance, older people's cognitive performance increases after discussing a difficult life situation with an adolescent-a social context which likely activates the stereotype about older people's wisdom and older people's motivation to pass on knowledge to the younger generation (Kessler and Staudinger 2007). Another study found that age was unrelated to the motivation to strive towards advancement and growth when employees believe that older workers are perceived more positively in their company (the motivation to strive towards advancement typically declines with age; Bowen and Staudinger 2013). ...
Views on ageing (VoA) have special relevance for the ageing process by influencing health, well-being, and longevity. Although VoA form early in life, so far, most research has concentrated on how VoA affect later middle-aged and older adults. In this theoretical article, we argue that a lifespan approach is needed in order to more fully understand the origins of VoA, how they change over ontogenetic time, and how they shape development across the full breadth of the life span. We begin by explicitly linking VoA to fundamental principles of lifespan development. We review existing theories of VoA and discuss their respective contributions and limitations. We then outline a lifespan approach to VoA that integrates existing theories and addresses some of their limitations. We elaborate on three core propositions of a lifespan approach to VoA: (1) VoA develop as the result of a dynamic, ongoing, and complex interaction between biological-evolutionary, psychological, and social-contextual factors; however, the relative importance of different sources changes across the life span; (2) VoA impact development across the whole life span; however, different outcomes, mechanisms, and time frames need to be considered in order to describe and understand their effects; and (3) VoA are multidimensional, multidirectional, and multifunctional throughout life, but their complexity, meaning, and adaptivity changes across the life span. We conclude with recommendations for future lifespan research on VoA. (224 words)
... On the contrary to the above, a study done by Bowen and Staudinger (2012) examined relationship between age and promotions. The study found that there was negative 6 relationship between age and promotion orientations when perceived older worker steriotype was less positive. ...
... The scale (a ¼ .90 for older and .89 for younger nursing staff) consisted of four relevant dimensions (performance, adaptability, reliability, and warmth, all a's ¼ .73-.76) operationalized with items taken from several studies (Bowen & Staudinger, 2013;Marcus et al., 2016;Posthuma & Campion, 2009;Van Dalen et al., 2009). Because "competent" was answered more positively for older than younger nursing staff contrary to all other performance-related items, it was analyzed separately. ...
Age stereotypes in the context of work take effect in management decisions and leadership behavior. We aimed to comprehensively measure main dimensions of work-related age stereotypes, namely, performance, adaptability, reliability, and warmth, and explored how they vary across age groups, thereby testing predictions of social identity theory and associations with social contact. Three hundred and eighty German nurses aged between 19 and 63 years participated in this study. Older nurses were seen as more competent, less physically strong, and less adaptable, whereas younger nurses were seen as less reliable and less warm. In-group bolstering was observed for both age groups, however, much stronger for older professionals. Besides age, contact quality, the number of very close older colleagues, the perception of aging, and the perception of older people in general were associated with age stereotypes about older nurses. We conclude with a discussion of measures to reduce age stereotypes at work.
... Results also evidenced that perceptions of work ageism were related with psychological states, attitudinal and behavioral variables such as lower willingness to learn and train [44]; decreased work engagement and lower sense of organizational membership [8,45]; lower job satisfaction and organizational/a↵ective commitment and higher actual job withdrawal [18,[46][47][48]; lower self-esteem and perceived personal control [49]; lower orientation to promotion and career development [13,50]; lower desired retirement age and poor expected retirement adjustment [51]; and heightened intentions to leave job and to retire early [8,47,52]. In addition, the decision to retire prematurely as consequence of perceived age discrimination at work can adversely a↵ect a person's economic situation in retirement [17,53], both in subjective and objective incomes [54]. ...
Negative stereotypes about older workers can result in ageism and age discrimination in the workplace. The aim of this study is to carry out an adaptation to Spanish and a preliminary validation of the Nordic Age Discrimination Scale (NADS) in a sample of Spanish workers over 55 years of age. The study involved 209 employees aged between 55 and 67 years old (155 women (74.2%) and 54 men (25.8%)) working in the health sector with di↵erent professional categories (nurses, doctors, nursing assistants, ancillaries and health technicians). The reliability index of the six dimensions of the NADS (promotion, training, development, development appraisals, wage increase and change processes) measured by Cronbach's alpha was ↵ = 0.83. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, with the goodness-of-fit indexes used, reflect an acceptable adjustment of the single-factor structure of the NADS. Regarding criterion and construct validity, the NADS correlated positively and negatively with the respective variables in the expected directions, except in one case. These results indicate that the Spanish version of the NADS shows adequate levels of internal consistency and criterion validity, and this instrument meets standard psychometric properties in its Spanish version.
... In a similar vein, discrimination in hiring older workers develops from perceptions of later-life inhibitions (Bjelland, Bruyere, Von Schrader, Houtenville, Ruiz-Quintanilla, & Webber, 2010), or else concerns over health-related costs (Neumark et al., 2015). A climate of negative attitudes toward older workers dissuades them from an opportunityseeking promotion orientation (Bowen & Staudinger, 2013). This inhibits their performance by reducing their tendency to pursue potentially work-life-extending endeavors, such as trainings (Zacher et al., 2010). ...
... Nevertheless, the literature shows that older workers are perceived as less creative, less interested in new technologies, less integrated into the work teams and even less emotionally resilient (6,10,23,42). ...
Introduction:
In the European Union, the employment rate for the population in the age group 55-64 years has greatly increased in the last two decades. Companies, especially in sectors such as banking, are looking for new strategies to improve the productivity of workers in this age group.
Objectives:
This study was conceived with the purpose of exploring the associations between job characteristics that could influence stress and certain organizational aspects in a large population of banking workers.
Methods:
More than 2,000 workers over 50 years of age of an Italian banking group participated in the study. Work-related stress was measured with the Stress Questionnaire (SQ). Organizational aspects of work were measured with a dedicated scale included in the SQ. Demographic aspects were detected by specific questions. Structural equation modelling was used and correlation coefficients were calculated.
Results:
The results from the structural equation modeling supported the theoretical model. Organizational policies are associated with both stress correlated factors (β=0.468) and perceptions of supervisor support and social support (β=0.710). The perception of both parameters is associated with stress outcomes (β=0.365). The proposed model offered better results than a competitive model, on which a total mediation was tested, rather than a partial one (p<0.001).
Conclusions:
The results highlight the importance of an integrated assessment of the effects of organizational aspects of work and stress factors to implement the protection of physical and mental health. Further research will help to understand more thoroughly if the issues emerged are effectively related to age. This can be assessed through a case-control study that also includes younger workers.
