Occupational Age Stereotypes Of College Students And Their Intervention

Stereotype is a kind of general stable viewpoint towards a certain social group.People always focus on the occupation,which is one of the important research areas in stereotype.In the present study we considered the explicit and implicit occupational age stereotypes,and discussed the changeability of implicit occupational age stereotypes by using the suppression strategy.The entire research was consisted of three parts.The first study discussed about the existence of the explicit occupational age stereotypes.Using the explicit occupational age stereotypes questionnaire,120 undergraduate students were investigated in this study.The results showed:(1)Explicit occupational age stereotypes was an objective reality,participants considered young people were suitable for youthful occupations while old people were suitable for elder occupations.(2)There is no significant difference between male and female students on explicit occupational age stereotypes.The second study discussed about the existence of the implicit occupational age stereotypes.Using the Implicit Association Test to test the implicit occupational age stereotypes,total 120 undergraduate students were tested in this study.The results showed:(1)The implicit occupational age stereotypes indeed existed.Participants inclined to associate the youthful occupations with the young words and associate the elder occupations with the old words.(2)The implicit occupational age stereotypes was not partial to young people,the implicit occupational age stereotypes was bidirectional,some occupations were suitable for young people while some were suitable for old people.(3)There is no significant difference between male and female students on implicit occupational age stereotypes.The third research explored the suppression strategy as a intervention to change the implicit occupational age stereotype.Total 65 undergraduate students were tested in this study.They were divided into two groups:experimental group and control group.The results showed:(1)The suppression strategy could reduce the implicit occupational age stereotypes.(2)Although the suppression strategy had a certain effect,the implicit occupational age stereotypes could not be removed completely.In a word,undergraduates had both explicit and implicit occupational age stereotypes,but the implicit occupational age stereotypes could be changed by the suppression strategy.