Generational Bias and Its Implications

Many studies have proven that members of multigenerational families were likely to live longer. So why is it that we have an inherent bias towards those within our own age group rather than learning to interact with others in a more compatible way.

While it is easy to speculate, not much research has been dedicated in order to tackle the ongoing dilemma of generational bias. This is the problematic belief that everyone of a certain generation is either inferior to your generation, or displays a certain negative behavior. While you may have only ever seen millennials battling it out with Gen Z on social media, it is actually a much more prevalent issue in the workplace; starting with stereotypes.

When there are up to 5 generations in one work environment, it can be difficult to effectively interact with one another. Therefore, people tend to rely on how they perceive a certain age group in order to communicate. This can lead to toxic social environments and low retention rates.One study attempted to prove this hypothesis by testing for the effects of perceived age when technology training. Undergraduate students were paired up in trainer-trainee dynamics. The ages were varied between the duos, switching between an older or younger perceived individual. They were then asked to teach the trainee to perform a computer task using a chat function. It was found that when the student receiving the instructions was assumed to be old, the expectations of the trainer were much lower than if the student was assumed to be young. As a result, we can conclude that age stereotypes have a direct correlation with the quality of training received when perceived age is young compared to old.

This is one of the few studies conducted which prove how harmful stereotypes are in society and more specifically the workplace. What this means is that some organisations with large age gaps have not been able to maximise their performance because of social barriers: one of the biggest being a power complex.

Technically speaking, unless you are part of a certain generation, you can never truly understand the experiences had by them. Therefore, we have learned to fill in what we believe about others in order to self-fulfill our thoughts. At some point these start to become true in your own mind and it can become very difficult to unlearn how you interact with those younger or older than you. For example, older people will compare their younger selves with today's current youth and tend to believe that they were more polite or hard-working. However, these are all based on memories which can be largely unreliable as proven by the reconstructive theory.

Power is a huge problem both at work or in other social settings because we can convince ourselves that other generations won’t understand. In spite of this, we fail to remember that there is always something valuable to learn from someone else’s life experiences. While it is often thought that teens are inferior to adults (by adults), the feeling of power can go both ways as well. Gen Z may feel more technologically inclined compared to other ages which may create ignorance amongst the internet and connecting the elderly online.

In order to counteract the implications of generation bias, it is important to allow for generational diversity. This can be as simple as adults providing emotional support for those younger than them. Having someone to look up to in a household or workplace allows for more confidence and support.

We should all keep one practice in mind when interacting with others. If they’re younger than you, think about the mistakes you made at their age: they need your support, not your criticism. If they’re older than you, think about how much will change in the next 50 years; they’ve done a pretty great job adapting to the new age.

Alma Mahmood 11D