Psychological age is a subjective
self-perception of own age. In other words, is how old someone feels, behaves
and acts. The psychological age does not have to be equal to chronological age, which
is an age since birth.
For example, in many case people who be 70 years
old feels like they are 40 years old, or even 20 years old. The
difference between chronological age (calendar age) and the
psychological age (age at which one feels) is crucial from the point
of view of both building target groups for marketing and human resource management processes. In James E. Birren's
studies concept of psychological age is wider and holistic. On one
hand, he agrees that psychological age is correlated with biological and
social age, but on the other hand psychological age is a concept which
includes the "use of adaptive capacities of memory, learning, intelligence,
skills, feelings, motivations, and emotions for exercising behavioural control
or self-regulation."[1].
Age concept of workers
To understand why psychological age is so
important to indicate, we should take a wider look at five different approaches
to conceptualize the ageing of workers presented by Sterns and Doverspike[2][3]:
1. Chronological age refers to one's
calendar age. In this case, we distinguish between employees due to their
calendar age. Although the terms young employee and senior employee are very
fluid, it is indicated that older employees can specify people even from the
age of 40 to people over 75 years of age and older.
2. Functional or
performance-based age. The basis for determining this type of age is the employee's
performance in the perspective of differentiating between different levels of
ability to perform tasks and functioning at different ages. With the increase
of the calendar age after reaching a certain ceiling, the motor, cognitive or
psychophysical abilities of the employee start to decrease directly affecting
their performance.
3. Psychosocial or
subjective age is a subjective view of how old you are, what age group
you are identifying with and how old you want to be. The social conditioning
and perception of a given age are important here in terms of self-identification of one's own age.
Depending on the attitudes and behaviours displayed, the employee can be
assigned and classified in a given age category. The same relationship that he
builds with other employees shows how old he wants to be taken and how many
years he feels. In addition, social norms prevail in a given group of
employees and their perception of the moment when someone begins to be treated
and behaves like an old person.
4. Organizational age is the ageing of
people in the workplace through
the angle of seniority and organizational workflow. It may also refer to the
employee's career stage and the age standards
prevailing in the organization.
5. The life span concept of
age has much in common
with the above-presented approaches, drawing from the point of view of the age.
What distinguishes this approach is the possibility of behavioural change in
every moment of life. “This behavioural change may be affected by three sets of
factors: normative, age-graded biological, and/or environmental determinants,
which are strongly related to age; normative, history-graded influences, which
are related to the age-cohort, and non-normative unique career and life
changes. To capture the unique impact of the life span approach, life span age
can best be measured by life stage or family status.”.
Measuring of age
When we think about measuring age first think about asking someone “How old are you?” or “What is the date of your birth?” but in the case of different approaches to age, we can notice it is not enough. Of course, on the one hand, these questions must be asked, because the chronological age is an inseparable element of other age concepts, on the other hand, they are not enough. As the age grows, the variable of the calendar age may become less and less important. Significance, on the other hand, is gained by other approaches such as the approach to psychological age. This should be taken into account in marketing activities as well as human resource management.
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Footnotes
1. ↑ Birren J. E.,
Schroots J. J. F. (1988)
2. ↑ Doverspike D.,
Sterns, H.L. (1989)
3. ↑ Kooij D., Lange
de A., Jansen P., Dikkers J. (2008)
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