Karina SZASZVARI Institute of Psychology, University of Pécs, Hungary

 „Greying” society:  The rapidly growing aging population of the developed societies gives challenges for the social, political, medical, and economical structure.  Definition of aging/older worker  There is no consistency in definition of older worker: over 55, 50, or rather 40?  We use over 45 years of age as definition, based on Hungarian labour market experiences and European Union studies: over 45 there is an increasing difficulty in job-finding, and increasing discrimination of aging workforce.

1. Former scientific researches and the common life experiences proved the existence of age- stereotypes in workplace issues. 2. There are current researches about benefits of elderly.(Englander,in press) 3. What kind of variables are responsible for the stereotypes of aging workforce?

Our approach has 4 pillars: 1. Age stereotypes in work relation 2. Leader’s psychological distance and group effectiveness. (Fiedler, 1960) 3. Dogmatism (Rokeach, 1960) 4. Risk-perception and judgement in old age (Englander, in press)

 Job related age stereotypes (Kirchner, 1952;Rosen Jerdee,1976) and AS on Managerial decisions (Rosen Jerdee,1976; Chiu at al,2001; Redman, 2006;Munnel at al, 2006) - characteristics of AS were analyzed, but the subjects were university students; there weren’t any „on the job” sample  The role of race, age, sex in employment selection (Hafner, 1977): The employers preferred the younger candidates versus the older ones.  Stereotypes about Aging Workforce in the Hungarian Labour Market (Daxkobler,2005) HR experts didn’t attached as great importance to those features which change into negative direction with the age as we could except them by the importance in the selection process.

We focus on the followings:  The effective leaders could differentiate their subordinates more better than less effective groups’ leaders. The effective leaders see considerable difference between the best and the worst co-workers.  The way of perception of a situation or a person could be differentiated or generalised. In this case the generalisation could be responsible for stereotyping.

 Dogmatism  The opened and closed mind (Rokeach,1960)  Closed mindedness as a cognitive style effects the processing of information, and causes stereotypes due to the dychotonomous functioning  Risk-perception and judgement in old age (Englander, in press)  Some features of risk perception shows differences between elderly and young adulthood.  The judgement of elderly is considerably different than of young adults.

1. The cognitive style effects the person- perception related to age: The closed- mindedness effects big difference in person- perception of young and older worker. 2. a. There are special components of stereotyping of aging people in work-situation b. and these components relate to the beliefs about risk perception and judgements of youngsters and elderly.

Participants  288 employee in different organizations  Male N=129, female N=125  Age 19-54, M=32,7, SD=9,5  Qualification: basic N= 41, middle N= 171, high N= 54  Leaders N=28, staffmembers N=234 Process  Questionnaires  Assumed Similarity of Opposites (based on Fiedler,1960)  Dogmatism Scale (Rokeach, 1960)  Attitude questionnaire of Aging  Attitude questionnaire about characteristics of older people’s risk perception and judgement (based on Englander, in press)

 Measures the perceived difference of two age groups : based on Fiedler, 1960, MPC –LPC questionnaires  8 point semantic different scales:  Least preferred Y OUNG co-worker (under 45): LPC(Y)  Least preferred A GING co-worker (over 45): LPC(A) „Imagine the younger (under age 45 )co-worker whom you can work the least…  ASO index = √ ∑ i [ LPC(Y)-LPC(A) ] 2  High ASO index means:  subject perceives big difference between young and older co- worker in work-situation  or we could say subject attributes overacting importance to age in person perception. i=1-16

 "Dogmatism has been defined as a. a relatively closed cognitive system of beliefs and disbeliefs about reality, b. organized around a central set of beliefs about absolute authority which, in turn, c. provides a framework for patterns of intolerance and qualified tolerance towards others.„  40 item, 6 point Likert scale (between +3 and -3)  N= 270 M=22,3 SD=6,02  Open-mindedness  Scores<20 N=81 M=15,2 SD=3,63  Closed-mindedness  Scores>25 N=82 M=28,8 SD=2,89

„What is your opinion about your older co- worker (over 45) in general?”  19 bipolar adjective pairs, 8 point semantic different scale  The scale is based on a focus group collection (N=38)  N=270 M=69 SD=25,2  Cronbach’s α=.93

KMO=0.932

 F1= Developmental capacity  Cronbach’s α=.928  F2= Social/emotional stability  Cronbach’s α=.826  F3= Norms-keeping behaviour in organization  Cronbach’s α=.732 Answer for H2(a) :There are special features of stereotyping elderly considering workplace environment.

 ASO index  Separated 2 significantly (p<.001) different groups (N=71, M=5.2, SD=1.4 and N=76, M=11.7, SD=1.5)  The difference is independent of sexuality, age, qualification, leadership position (p>.05) There is a difference between people in person-perception based on age.

 Dogmatism scale  Separated 2 significantly (p<.001) different groups (N=81 M=15.2, SD=3.63 and N=84, M= 28.8, SD=2.9)  open-mindedness/closed-mindedness is not related to ASO index (Oneway Anova, p>.05) Answere for H1: The difference in age perception can’t be explained by cognitive style.

 Attitude Questionnaire of Aging  Significant differences in all 3 factors by age-groups (1=age 40 N= 63 M= 47,3 SD= 4,8)  Age-group 1 and 2 acted the same therefore only 2 age-groups were created: 1=age 40 N= 63 M= 47,3 SD= 4,8  Younger employees (under 40) attribute significantly more negativ features to the aged over 45 co- workers than the older employees (over 40) do in all 3 factors. (F1 p<.001, F2 p=.001, F3 p<.01)

 There is a difference between people in person-perception by age. (ASO, p<.001)  The difference in age perception can’t be explained by cognitive style (Dogmatism-ASO, p>.05),  In organisational environment there are 3 work-related factors as components of stereotypes of aging people. (Attitude Questionnaire for Aging)  There isn’t any relationship between person-perception and attitudes toward elderly. The value of ASO index is connected with neither of the 3 factors. (ASO-Attitude Questionnaire of Aging, p>.05)

 This is a pilot study, with part-outcomes as starting-point for further research.  The results are calming: the attitudes toward aging workforce can be influenced (by the environment/ organization?)  But we have to clear up the background of the existence of the difference in person-perception based on age in organisational environment  It must be studied what variables are responsible for age- stereotypes at the workplace.  Emphases on organizational issues, as  organizational culture, age-norms, Person-Environment Fit  Adult career patterns (individual differences, opportunities)  Values, benefits of employment of elderly

Thank you for your attention!