Dr Ulrike Fasbender

During her time in the UK, Dr Fasbender will seek to develop a new research collaboration with a topic area specialist at Birkbeck and together advance testable theories mapping the underlying mechanisms and benefits of intergenerational contact in the workplace. Specifically, she will be using a dyadic approach to uncover the crossover of motivational mechanisms between older and younger co-workers.

Dr Fasbender will collect and analyse longitudinal dyadic data from a sample of British workers (ie, each dyad will compose of an older and a younger co-worker). For the first time, she will test a bi-directional model that assesses how social mindfulness (empathic concern and perspective taking) can mediate the relationship between intergenerational workplace contact and co-worker-support behaviours of both younger and older workers. In addition to testing this theoretical model, Dr Fasbender will develop new lines of intergenerational co-worker contact theory to pursue in the future.