Motivated to be socially mindful: Explaining age differences in the effect of employees’ contact quality with coworkers on their coworker support

Abstract

In this research, we examine how high‐quality contact can facilitate employees’ coworker support and explain why the benefits of high‐quality contact are contingent upon age. First, we employ a social mindfulness lens to decipher the motivational mechanisms of high‐quality contact with coworkers on providing coworker support via coworker‐oriented perspective taking and empathic concern. Second, we utilize socioemotional selectivity theory to overcome the current age‐blind view on workplace interactions and examine the indirect moderating effect of age via future time perspective on the link between contact quality, social mindfulness, and coworker support. We tested our hypotheses based on data from a sample of 575 employees collected in three waves. Results showed that both coworker‐oriented perspective taking and empathic concern mediated the positive effects of contact quality on coworker support. The effect of contact quality on coworker‐oriented empathic concern was stronger for older employees with a more constrained future time perspective as compared to younger employees with a more extensive future time perspective. Overall, we extend research on aging, workplace interactions, and support behavior by linking the literature on these topics using a social mindfulness lens and by adding employee age and age‐related mechanisms as important boundary conditions that qualify the outcomes of positive workplace contact.

Explaining Age Differences in the Motivating Potential of Intergenerational Contact at Work

“…With our research on intergenerational contact, we add an age-specific lens by showing that contact between different age groups can fulfill more basic human needs, such as the need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Our findings are thus aligned with research on the need-fulfilling and motivating nature of workplace contact in general (Ehrhardt & Ragins, 2019;Fasbender et al, 2020;Green, Gino, & Staats, 2017), but they also challenge more negative conceptualizations of possible conflicts in multigenerational environments (North & THE MOTIVATING POTENTIAL OF INTERGENERATIONAL CONTACT AT WORK 31 Fiske, 2015;Rudolph & Zacher, 2015). In other words, we advance research on aging at work by demonstrating that employees from other age groups can meet one's needs related to social belonging.…”

“…Accordingly, we go beyond existing research that has focused on the direct effects of age as a proxy for assumed psychological mechanisms, by theorizing and directly operationalizing the age-based mechanisms specified in lifespan development theories (Carstensen et al, 1999;Erikson, 1963). The indirect moderation effect of age through perceived remaining time at work on the link between belonging and work engagement emphasizes that age-related mechanisms based on lifespan development theories, rather than employee age per se, play an important role in understanding the ways in which age shapes motivational processes at work (Bohlmann et al, 2018;Fasbender et al, 2020). Finally, the fact that we found evidence of the moderating role of perceived remaining time at work but not generativity motive, might suggest that agingrelated perceptions of time rather than generativity motive is the more relevant psychological mechanism to explain age differences in the motivating potential of intergenerational contact.…”

Coworking Spaces in Germany during the Covid-19 Crisis Utilized for Homeoffice and Homeschooling

“…[20] analyzed of coworking strategies for interaction and innovation, as coworking is a great place for entrepreneurs and SME to get started after the crisis. [21] reminds us of the age differences of the users of coworking spaces, ranging from students who learn on-line to seniors who shop online [22] and receive support from others according to Rosenbaum, M.S. and Massiah, C.A.…”

Exploring the Interactions of Factory Workers in China: A Model Development Using the Grounded Theory Approach

“…As interpersonal interaction involves psychological characteristics that affect the interaction, such as attitude and motivation, there are many in-depth studies of the psychological mechanism of interpersonal interaction [50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. In recent years, studies of personal characteristics affecting employee interactions have examined work motivation [50,51], gender [52], age [53,54], and personality traits [55,56], all of which are found to be important factors affecting employee interactions. Empirical research finds that the personality characteristics of employees are the main factors affecting interactions among employees, and extroverted employees will have a greater number of interactions in the workplace than introverted employees [48].…”