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An Alternative Approach to Understanding Generational Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2015

Yi Wang  and
Yisheng Peng
Yi Wang*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University
Yisheng Peng
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yi Wang, Psychology Building, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403. E-mail: yiwang@bgsu.edu
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Extract

According to Costanza and Finkelstein (2015), the definition and measurement of generational membership could be two major problems inherent in the literature on generational differences. So far, researchers have defined generation in terms of groups of people belonging to the same cohorts, age groups, and experience of certain common events (Joshi, Dencker, & Franz, 2011). In this vein, generational difference is operationalized mostly as a categorical variable, and most researchers assign participants into generational categories based on date of birth. For instance, people born in 1958–1959 and 1973–1974 are typically divided into Boomers and Gen X, respectively (Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman, & Lance, 2010).

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 390 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2015 

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