A social psychological perspective on successful aging and re tirement: Identity change in the transition through adulthood and into old age

Larger project:

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The past century has seen unprecedented increases in average life expectancy. As people live longer percentages of older adults in the workforce and in society in general have been increasing. This provides opportunities and challenges both for organizations to integrate older adults in the workforce and for older adults themselves to make the most of their pre- and post-retirement years. In this PhD project we focus on social identity (change) as individuals transition from being middle aged to being old, with a focus on emotional, motivational, behavioural and cognitive reactions to becoming older. We propose that in studying this transition it is important to take a developmental perspective of how social categorization both by oneself (own stereotypes, identification as worker, elderly) versus one’s environment (other’s stereotypes) evolves and interacts with social (organizational climate) and individual components (biological age, social network) to affect adjustment to older age. In doing so, we integrate theory and research in the areas of aging, intergroup relations, and organizational psychology.

Researchers:

Bibiana Armenta Department of Psychology, University of Groningen
Katherine Stroebe Department of Psychology, University of Groningen
Susanne Scheibe Department of Psychology, University of Groningen
Nico van Yperen Department of Psychology, University of Groningen
Tom Postmes Department of Psychology, University of Groningen

Educational program of the department:

Bachelor theses
Master theses

Names of courses:

Topics of bachelor theses:

How do Coping Mechanisms in Later Adulthood work? - The Role of Attributions of Discrimination to Aging";
"Feeling Younger, Feeling Healthier and The Influence of Perceived Age Discrimination";
"Attributions of Negative Events to Aging and Ageism: The Effect of Group Identification on Subjective Health in Older Workers"

Topics of master theses:

"Subjective age bias as a coping mechanism to deal with age based discrimination";
"Age-based discrimination, perception of permeability of older workers, and how both affect group identification and well-being"

Cooperations exist within the department:

Katherine Stroebe, and Tom Postmes. Social Phsychology
Susanne Scheibe, and Nico van Yperen. Organizational Psychology

Cooperations exist within faculty, university, (inter)nationally:

Alwin Stegeman. Psychometrics and Statistics Group

Representative publications:

Successful grant proposals or other achievements:

PhD projects or smaller reserach projects

Theme:

University's focus areas:

Healthy Ageing