Age Stereotyping in Resume Screening: Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater

Drury, Lisbeth; Frasca, Keely J.; Schellaert, Maaike; Derous, Eva

doi:10.1093/workar/waac007

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Another methodological limitation is that the participants evaluated hypothetical applicants (i.e. “paper people”; for a critical discussion, see Drury et al, 2022). The use of such vignette studies in research on personnel decisions has recently been debated as possibly overstating the real effects of age stereotypes (see, e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too old for modern work? An explicit and implicit measure of the modern-work-is-young stereotype

Drazic,

Schermuly

2023

German Journal of Human Resource Management: Zeitschrift für Pe

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With organizational practices such as working from home, agile project management, and shared leadership, the world of work is becoming increasingly dynamic and flexible. Simultaneously, the workforce in most industrialized nations is getting older. We hypothesized that both an explicit and implicit stereotype exists that associates modern work practices (MWP) more strongly with younger workers than with older workers (i.e. modern-work-is-young stereotype). With a focus on other-stereotyping, we surveyed participants who identified as younger or middle-aged workers ( N = 186). Based on the contact hypothesis, we assumed that contact to older coworkers and contact with MWP are negatively related to both explicit and implicit endorsement of the modern-work-is-young stereotype. Furthermore, we examined differences in résumé evaluations for a job involving MWP, presenting an older and a younger hypothetical applicant. The results indicate the existence of a moderate explicit as well as implicit modern-work-is-young stereotype. The proposed contact hypothesis held true for the explicit but not for the implicit modern-work-is-young stereotype. Lastly, the younger applicant received significantly more positive evaluations than the older applicant, and only the explicit modern-work-is-young stereotype predicted the extent of age discrimination. The results suggest that the explicit modern-work-is-young stereotype can harm older employees and hamper intergenerational collaboration. These findings are especially important in times of demographic change, when workforces are becoming increasingly age-heterogeneous and retaining older workers seems more important than ever.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too old for modern work? An explicit and implicit measure of the modern-work-is-young stereotype

Drazic,

Schermuly

2023

German Journal of Human Resource Management: Zeitschrift für Pe

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Making Progress in Age Stereotype Research

Murphy

DeNisi

2022

Work, Aging and Retirement

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Murphy and DeNisi’s review suggested that the links between age and personnel decisions in organizations were generally weak and inconsistent and, on this basis, suggested that the effects of age stereotypes on these decisions might not be large. Fourteen papers commented on the evidence and arguments offered by Murphy and DeNisi. In our response, we comment on three broad themes running though this set of papers. First, several papers challenged the description of age effects as small and argued that age stereotypes can have negative effects and that older workers can be disadvantaged in the workplace. We fully agree but note that the size of the effects shown in our review and in the research cited by these commentaries effectively rules out the hypothesis that age stereotypes are consistently and strongly negative and that they have large effects in personnel decisions. Second, both context factors and intersectionality are suggested as potential moderators of age stereotype effects. We believe that progress in this area requires the development of specific models of these effects, and we offer examples. Third, many papers highlighted the challenges in studying age stereotype effects, in particular the failure of many studies to measure the stereotypes held by decision makers or to rule out factors unrelated to age stereotypes. We thus offer suggestions for improving age stereotype research.

show abstract

Too old to be creative? An age bias in creativity judgment

Oh,

Jeong,

Wang

et al. 2023

Work, Aging and Retirement

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Building on prior literature on social judgment and age stereotypes, we investigate whether age bias exists in creativity judgment and, if so, how it emerges and to what extent it persists. One archival data study (Study 1) and 5 recruitment scenario experiments (Studies 2–5) provide evidence that people persistently evaluate the creativity of an older person more negatively compared to that of a younger person. This age bias in creativity judgment remained even when a creative job feature that is positively associated with older people (i.e., requiring convergent vs. divergent thinking) was highlighted (Study 3) and when a worker demonstrated creative performance (Study 4). Furthermore, by testing the moderating role of age stereotypes, we found that age stereotypes in the adaptability dimension specifically contributed to this bias: those who believe that older people are not adaptable at work tend to exhibit age-biased creativity judgments (Studies 5a and 5b). Understanding the persistence of age bias in creativity judgment and its processes helps raise awareness of it in the workplace. Our findings also call for future investigations into effective strategies to attenuate such biases in the workplace.

show abstract

Age Stereotyping in Resume Screening: Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater

Cited by 3 publications

References 37 publications

Too old for modern work? An explicit and implicit measure of the modern-work-is-young stereotype

Too old for modern work? An explicit and implicit measure of the modern-work-is-young stereotype

Making Progress in Age Stereotype Research

Too old to be creative? An age bias in creativity judgment

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About