The aging of the workforce creates opportunities for older, experienced employees to transmit their expertise to younger employees via mentoring. Age-dissimilar interactions, however, can be fraught with challenging interpersonal dynamics. Using two professional samples and a field experimental design, Dr. Wessel will examine the process by which age dissimilarity affects mentoring quality. Further, her research team will examine the efficacy of short, easy-to-implement reflective interventions focused on perspective-taking and authenticity building in improving mentoring within age-diverse dyads. Using dyadic moderated-mediation analyses, results from this project will expand our knowledge of age diversity and mentoring, as well as provide HR professionals with practical diversity management tools. 

Principal Investigator
Graduate Researchers
Project Sponsor
Society for Human Resource Management