Francioli, Stéphane P;
Danbold, Felix;
North, Michael S;
(2023)
Millennials Versus Boomers: An Asymmetric Pattern of Realistic and Symbolic Threats Drives Intergenerational Tensions in the United States.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
10.1177/01461672231164203.
(In press).
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Abstract
Intergenerational conflict appears frequently in American public discourse, often framed as clashes between Millennials and Baby Boomers. Building on intergroup threat theory in an exploratory survey, a preregistered correlational study, and a preregistered intervention (N = 1,714), we find that (a) Millennials and Baby Boomers do express more animosity toward each other than toward other generations (Studies 1-3); (b) their animosity reflects asymmetric generational concerns: Baby Boomers primarily fear that Millennials threaten traditional American values (symbolic threat) while Millennials primarily fear that Baby Boomers's delayed transmission of power hampers their life prospects (realistic threat; Studies 2-3); (c) finally, an intervention challenging the entitativity of generational categories alleviates perceived threats and hostility for both generations (Study 3). These findings inform research on intergroup threat, provide a theoretically grounded framework to understand intergenerational relations, and put forward a strategy to increase harmony in aging societies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Millennials Versus Boomers: An Asymmetric Pattern of Realistic and Symbolic Threats Drives Intergenerational Tensions in the United States |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/01461672231164203 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231164203 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0) This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | ageism, entitativity, generation, intergroup threat theory |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > UCL School of Management |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10169488 |
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