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INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND

Age-based differences on cognitive measures used in personnel decisions & strategies to reduce age-based adverse impact have received little attention in HR & management. Critical for organizations to have a better understanding of potential for age-based adverse impact

Considering the rise in older employees and age-based discrimination cases, it is critical to focus on predictors with potential adverse impact and at what selection ratios adverse impact is likely to occur

Klein et al. (2015) examined executive performance on GMA and specific ability tests to determine the magnitude of age differences and how they may contribute to adverse impact on older individuals

Cognitive ability and intelligence are synoms for the scientific consensus of "a very general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, problem solve, think abstractly , grasp complex ideas, learning rapidity, and learning from experience

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PURPOSE OF KLEIN et al. (2015) --> To investigate age differences on measures of GMA and specific cognitive abilities among executive job applicants to determine which predictors may result in age-based adverse impact in personnel selection and advancement decisions. Also, to explore the degree of generalizability to other job applicant groups and selection scenarios such as non-exec jobs and heterogeneous samples in age, color, cognitive ability

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STUDY DESIGN 4 samples

Sample#1 -- (N=3,375) executive applicants with prior managerial experience. 61% male. Age range 20-74 (M=42.87, SD=9.48)

MEASURES: Corsini (1957) Non-Verbal Reasoning Test

RESULTS

All comparison groups lower on GMA than 20-29 yr old reference group

Effect sizes for three age groups in the 45 to 59 year old range were in .20s

Largest difference in GMA were executives over 59 years of age