Stereotype Threat and Aging in the Workplace

Synonyms

Aging workforce; Employee retention; Job attitudes; Mature age workers; Social identity threat; Stereotyping

Definition

Stereotype threat is the concern that others are evaluating you through the lens of negative group-based stereotypes (Steele 1997). Over the past two decades, hundreds of laboratory studies have demonstrated that stereotype threat disrupts performance when people attempt difficult tasks in domains in which they are negatively stereotyped, such as women in math and African Americans in academics (Nguyen and Ryan 2008). It has been over a decade since this research was extended to older adults. Here too the accumulated research evidence demonstrates that older adults are susceptible to the performance-impairing effects of stereotype threat (Abrams et al. 2006). Although the majority of stereotype threat research has examined performance decrements, a smaller body of research demonstrates stereotype threat can lead people to disengage from domains in which they...