Susana Schmitz, a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Program in Psychology, will defend the thesis titled "What do we expect from younger workers? Assessing and understanding workplace youngism". The public defense is scheduled for April 11, 2025, 14:00 at Sala de Provas, B327 (Building 4) of Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon. And online: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/7441410132
Changes on room and Zoom link may be updated at Iscte's website.
Abstract
This dissertation examined the understudied topic of ageism toward younger workers (workplace youngism), focusing on prescriptive age stereotypes. A scoping review of 108 peer-reviewed articles first mapped the workplace youngism literature, suggesting that future research should focus directly on younger workers, develop specific instruments, explore antecedents and consequences of youngism more systematically, and consider diverse cultural contexts (Chapter 2). A total of five studies were then conducted resorting to eight samples. A measure assessing younger worker prescriptive stereotypes by using a culturally decentred approach was developed and validated in Portugal and the US (N = 154; N = 788; N = 584). The results confirmed a measure with 25 items, eight first-order factors, and three second-order factors: Humility-Deference, Loyalty-Belonging, and Vitality-Innovation conveying the beliefs that younger workers should accept a lower social status, yet exhibit competence similar to higher-status groups. The scale was labelled Workplace Ambivalent Youngism Scale (WAYS) (Chapter 3). Two experiments in the context of personnel decisions (N = 179; N = 213) examined whether violating (vs. adhering to) a younger worker prescriptive age stereotype by a younger (vs. middle-aged or older) worker, impacted fairness and person perceptions and decision support. The results highlight the importance of prescriptive age stereotypes as moderators of the relationship between target age and target behavior predicting important work-related outcomes (Chapter 4). Overall, this work contributes to the study of workplace ageism by expanding knowledge on workplace youngism, as well as examining younger worker prescriptive age stereotypes and their implications.
Members of the jury:
Donald Truxillo (University of Limerick)
Silvia Dello Russo (Luiss University)
Sibila Fernandes Magalhães Marques (Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa)
Christin-Melanie Vauclair (Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa)
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