AGE-DISCRIMINATION IN SIMULATED EMPLOYMENT CONTEXTS - AN INTEGRATIVE ANALYSIS

In the area of age discrimination in simulated employment settings, the present study meta-analytically tested 4 primary hypotheses derived from the social psychological stereotyping literature, referred to as the in-group bias, job information, salience, and job stereotype hypotheses. In general, the results supported the in-group bias, job information, and salience hypotheses, in that younger raters tended to give less favorable ratings to older workers when they were not provided with job-relevant information about the workers and when they concurrently rated old and young workers. Future research, including the initiation of research on economic-based age stereotypes, as well as practice directions related to valuing age diversity in organizational stakeholder groups are discussed.