The Consequences of Perceived Age Discrimination Amongst Older Police Officers: Is Social Support a Buffer?*
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00492.x |
| Date | 01 June 2006 |
| Author | Tom Redman,Ed Snape |
| Published date | 01 June 2006 |
RESEARCH NOTE
The Consequences of Perceived Age
Discrimination Amongst Older Police
Officers: Is Social Support a Buffer?
*
Tom Redman and Ed Snape
Durham Business School, University of Durham, Mill Hill Lane, Durham, DH1 3LB, UK and Department of
Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Email: tom.redman@durham.ac.uk
This paper considers the psychological consequences of perceived age discrimination, and
the buffering effect of social support. Findings suggest that age discrimination acts as a
stressor, with negative effects on job and life satisfaction, perceived power and prestige of
the job, and affective and normative commitment, along with positive effects on withdrawal
cognitions and continuance commitment. For work-based social support, there were
positive main effects on job and life satisfaction, power and prestige of the job, and
affective andnormative commitment, and a negative main effecton withdrawal cognitions.
However, there were no significant moderating effects for work-based social support, and
we found the anticipated buffering effect for non-work-based social support only for life
satisfaction, with reverse buffering for job satisfaction and normative commitment
For many individuals, encountering age discri-
mination at work can be a distressing experience,
and there is evidence that this is a major problem
facing older workers in the UK. Age discrimina-
tion is insidious, widespread and permeates many
aspects of working life, and recent studies suggest
that UK managers may hold a negative stereo-
type of the older worker (Chui et al., 2001).
Despite this concern, very little is known about
the impact of age discrimination on those who
are subjected to it. This article makes two main
contributions in this respect. First, it examines
the psychological consequences of perceived age
discrimination in terms of key work attitudes.
There is already evidence that perceived discri-
mination in general has negative psychological
consequences, but we know little as yet about the
impact of perceived age discrimination as the
large majority of existing studies have focused on
race and gender discrimination. Second, the
paper considers how employee resources in the
form of work based and non-work social support
can buffer the potentially negative consequences
of perceived age discrimination and lessen the
impact on work attitudes. There are already
studies on the coping behaviours of those who
feel they suffer race and gender discrimination,
but we can find no studies examining potential
moderators of the relationship between perceived
age discrimination and psychological outcomes.
Psychological consequences of perceived
discrimination
We conceptualize discrimination at work as a
form of unequal treatment involving decisions
that directly effect the employment status of
individuals or their treatment in relation to their
*
The two authors have contributed equally to this
article.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 17, 167–175 (2006)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00492.x
r2006 British Academy of Management
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