Cargando…

Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy

Discrimination against older adults in the workplace is a pervasive issue that has important consequences for older adults, leading to lower well-being (Stokes & Moorman, 2020) and worse job outcomes (Macdonald & Levy, 2016). One area where discrimination manifests is in hiring practices, an...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wilson, Megan, Hill, Patrick
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8681737/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3561
_version_ 1784617049038782464
author Wilson, Megan
Hill, Patrick
author_facet Wilson, Megan
Hill, Patrick
author_sort Wilson, Megan
collection PubMed
description Discrimination against older adults in the workplace is a pervasive issue that has important consequences for older adults, leading to lower well-being (Stokes & Moorman, 2020) and worse job outcomes (Macdonald & Levy, 2016). One area where discrimination manifests is in hiring practices, and thus research is needed to understand factors that impact willingness to hire older adults. One potential intervention target to reduce age discrimination in hiring is sense of purpose. Sense of purpose manipulations have previously been successful in increasing one’s comfort with diversity (Burrow & Hill, 2013), and thus may prove successful in combatting age discrimination in the workplace. Therefore, the current studies sought to understand whether sense of purpose was related to ageist attitudes and hiring decisions, and how a purpose manipulation might serve as a tool to combat discrimination in hiring. Across two studies (n = 594, MAge = 27.20), participants were shown the resumé of either an older adult applicant (62-years-old) or younger adult applicant (32-years-old), and were asked how hireable they would rate the applicant. The research found that the purpose manipulation did effectively increase individuals’ sense of purpose. In addition, the research found that sense of purpose was negatively related to ageist attitudes. However, the purpose manipulation was unsuccessful in reducing ageist attitudes, and had no effect on ageist discrimination in hiring. These results suggest that while sense of purpose is negatively related to ageist attitudes, manipulating purpose may not be an effective tool to reduce ageist attitudes or discrimination.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8681737
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Oxford University Press
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-86817372021-12-17 Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy Wilson, Megan Hill, Patrick Innov Aging Abstracts Discrimination against older adults in the workplace is a pervasive issue that has important consequences for older adults, leading to lower well-being (Stokes & Moorman, 2020) and worse job outcomes (Macdonald & Levy, 2016). One area where discrimination manifests is in hiring practices, and thus research is needed to understand factors that impact willingness to hire older adults. One potential intervention target to reduce age discrimination in hiring is sense of purpose. Sense of purpose manipulations have previously been successful in increasing one’s comfort with diversity (Burrow & Hill, 2013), and thus may prove successful in combatting age discrimination in the workplace. Therefore, the current studies sought to understand whether sense of purpose was related to ageist attitudes and hiring decisions, and how a purpose manipulation might serve as a tool to combat discrimination in hiring. Across two studies (n = 594, MAge = 27.20), participants were shown the resumé of either an older adult applicant (62-years-old) or younger adult applicant (32-years-old), and were asked how hireable they would rate the applicant. The research found that the purpose manipulation did effectively increase individuals’ sense of purpose. In addition, the research found that sense of purpose was negatively related to ageist attitudes. However, the purpose manipulation was unsuccessful in reducing ageist attitudes, and had no effect on ageist discrimination in hiring. These results suggest that while sense of purpose is negatively related to ageist attitudes, manipulating purpose may not be an effective tool to reduce ageist attitudes or discrimination. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8681737/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3561 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Wilson, Megan
Hill, Patrick
Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy
title Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy
title_full Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy
title_fullStr Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy
title_full_unstemmed Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy
title_short Ageism in Hiring Decisions: Sense of Purpose as a Mitigating Strategy
title_sort ageism in hiring decisions: sense of purpose as a mitigating strategy
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8681737/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3561
work_keys_str_mv AT wilsonmegan ageisminhiringdecisionssenseofpurposeasamitigatingstrategy
AT hillpatrick ageisminhiringdecisionssenseofpurposeasamitigatingstrategy