Making Progress in Age Stereotype Research

Abstract

AbstractMurphy 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.