Poles Apart: The Processing and Consequences of Mixed Media Stereotypes of Older Workers

This study uses the Stereotype Content Model to examine how mixed-media stereotypes about older workers affect the implicit activation and application of competence and warmth stereotypes among employees. By means of a 2 × 2 experiment, we show that a newspaper article portraying older workers in a stereotypical manner (i.e., high rather than low in warmth, low rather than high in competence) inhibits and evokes negative employability perceptions, resulting in a net negative effect on intentions to hire an older worker. Findings indicate that mixed-media portrayals have stronger effects on implicit stereotype activation compared to stereotype application. We propose a tailored media-based stereotype reduction strategy, whereby the negative component of older workers' stereotypes is replaced by stereotype-disconfirming information.