Age and Emotion Work

Age and Conflict Management

Age and Stress Management

Discussion

Conclusion

References

AGE AND STRESS MANAGEMENT

Although there is a general belief that as we age we increasingly struggle with health problems, empirical evidence shows that older workers often report lower strain than younger or middle-aged colleagues (Beehr, Grosch & Adams, 2019; see Chapter 15 of this volume). For example, older workers reported less emotional exhaustion in the meta-analyses of Brewer and Shapard (2004) and Ng and Feldman (2010). One explanation for this might be that older workers are better able to cope with stress. In their transactional model, Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 19) define psychological stress as “a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being.” Two processes play a crucial role in this model: appraisal processes and coping. Primary appraisal refers to categorizing situational aspects as irrelevant, benign-positive, or stressful. Stress appraisals comprise harm/loss, threat, and challenge. Secondary appraisal refers to what can be done in the face of a stressful encounter, i.e., the coping options available. On the basis of such primary and secondary appraisals, individuals start their coping processes that can lead to reappraisal processes. With regard to stress management, younger and older workers may first differ in how they appraise stressful situations (Scheibe & Zacher, 2013). Life experience and knowledge of a variety of stressful situations may influence the appraisal processes of older workers so that they tend to appraise situations as less stressful than do younger workers. Indeed, the metaanalysis of Ng and Feldman (2010) shows that age is negatively correlated with a variety of job stressors such as role conflict and role overload. In the present context, stressors referring to the social work environment are of particular interest. In Ng and Feldman’s meta-analysis, relationship conflicts were negatively related to age and interpersonal trust was positively related to age. In a similar vein, in Beitler et al.’s (2016) and Johnson et al.’s (2013) studies age was negatively related with social stressors occurring in service provider-customer interactions such as being exposed to disproportionate customer expectations or customer verbal aggression (see Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Dudenho¨ffer & Dormann, 2015).