The Consequences of Perceived Age Discrimination Amongst Older Police Officers: Is Social Support a Buffer?

By Tom Redman, E. Snape. 2006

152 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper considers the possible psychological consequences of perceived age discrimination, and the possible buffering effect of social support. Findings, based on a study of perceived age discrimination amongst police officers in the North of England, suggest that age discrimination acts as a stressor, with officers experiencing negative effects of perceived age discrimination 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 satisfaction, power and prestige of the job, and affective and normative commitment, and a negative main effect on 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. The limitations and implications of the study are discussed.

Subfields: Demography, Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2186c4dd9a981b19e3c40c7f0a136259c290e3ca

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Demography

1. Jamie Macdonald
2. Sheri R. Levy
3. Girish Prayag
4. D. Truxillo
5. T. Bauer
6. B. Erdogan

In Gender Studies

1. T. Bauer
2. B. Erdogan
3. Jamie Macdonald
4. Girish Prayag
5. Sheri R. Levy
6. D. Truxillo
7. Marylène Gagné

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Jamie Macdonald
2. Girish Prayag
3. Sheri R. Levy
4. D. Truxillo
5. T. Bauer
6. B. Erdogan
7. D. Stylidis
8. K. Woosnam

Citations in the corpus

• Whistle While You Work (2012, background): “Most studies did not theorize a relationship between life satisfaction and commitment, but those that reported this relationship showed correlations ranging between .15 (Susskind et al., 2000) to .39 (Redman & Snape, 2006).”
• Ageism in the Workplace: The Role of Psychosocial Factors in Predicting Job Satisfaction, Commitment, and Engagement (2016, background): “In a sample of police officers, ages 19–57 in England, perceived age discrimination was associated with reduced job satisfaction and commitment (Redman & Snape, 2006).”
• Psychological resilience, organizational resilience and life satisfaction in tourism firms: insights from the Canterbury earthquakes (2020, background): “Other studies suggest that life satisfaction is linked to both job satisfaction (Judge & Locke, 1993) and job commitment (Redman & Snape, 2006).”
• Impact of psychological capital and life satisfaction on organizational resilience during COVID-19: Indian tourism insights (2020, background): “Existing literature on life satisfaction establishes life satisfaction to be a significant predictor of an individual’s job satisfaction and wellbeing (Prayag et al., 2020; Redman & Snape, 2006).”
• Stereotypical Inferences as Mediators of Age Discrimination: The Role of Competence and Warmth (2011, unknown): “If older workers are excluded based on stereotypes, this not only has detrimental consequences for a large group of potential victims (Redman and Snape, 2006) but can also affect organizational performance, e.g. by increasing the risk of personnel shortage.”