WASHINGTON — The Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association has adopted a resolution stating that age is an important element of diversity and calls upon the Association to reject age based discrimination and to work to stop ageism in society.
"Many organizations/institutions claim diversity and at the same time have mandatory retirement," said psychologist Timothy Brock, Ph.D., of Ohio State University. "Places of employment that support diversity but also include an age of retirement is a contradiction. The research is quite clear. There is no evidence that age triggers incompetencies. When a milestone is reached, a person isn't suddenly unable to do the task he or she could do prior to that age. People's skills and talents are variable at any age. They become better and worse at doing certain tasks at different ages. So for most professions, mandatory retirement ages are unnecessary."
"This is a step in the right direction," said Ronald Abeles, Ph.D., an expert on aging issues and the current president of the Association's Division on Adult Development and Aging. "Employment and promotion decisions should be based upon performance and not upon arbitrarily defined age-limits. Psychology can contribute by not only pointing to moral issues such as ageism, but by developing objective, age-fair and task-relevant performance measures."
The resolution was adopted by a wide majority of the APA Council, the Association's governing body, at its February 15-17, 2002 meeting in Washington, DC.
The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 155,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.