A quasi-experimental examination of hypothesized contextual factors contributing to age bias in the workplace
Description
Recently, Finkelstein, Burke, and Raju (1995) performed a meta-analysis on the age discrimination in employment literature and found that the situational moderators of rater age, age salience, and job-relevant information each had some effect on differences in ratings of older and younger workers such that older workers tended to be rated less favorably on a number of work-related dimensions. However, the interacting effects of these variables on various work outcomes has not been addressed in the literature. Moreover, a conceptual framework specifying how these variables affect work-related outcomes has not been developed. The present study, based on refinements of the conceptual framework presented in Finkelstein et al., examined the effects of situational variables on ratings of interpersonal skills, economic benefit, and likelihood to interview a hypothetical applicant using experienced raters. In addition to hypotheses about the interacting effects of the variables examined in Finkelstein et al., it was hypothesized that age identity (i.e., a match between one's chronological age and cognitive age) would interact with age salience to produce a psychological state of in-group bias that would lead raters to favor workers from their age group. Support was found for a main effect of target age on economic benefit ratings; the older target was rated less economically beneficial than the younger target. In some instances (i.e., when age was highly salient; when raters psychologically identified with their age), older raters disfavored older workers in ratings of economic benefit. Older raters were more likely than younger raters to wish to interview an older target only when age was not highly salient and when they expressed a high level of value in their age group. Suggestions were made for the development of improved measures of economic benefit and age identity for further investigations of their role in a nomological network explaining age discrimination in employment. Further, suggestions for future research on age discrimination were put forth in the areas of downsizing, newcomer socialization, work teams, and the development of an investigation into the effects of a possible generation gap in the workplace