Older workers are not used to working in teams except in competitive situations. Older workers believe that informal teams are generally cliques and are to be avoided. For older employees, work on the job has usually been organized for individual contribution so that group activity was not possible or at least was discouraged. Older workers do not know very much about working cooperatively. The idea of cooperation in the past was seen largely as meaning not making waves, not getting in someone else's way, and giving help only when it was asked for.
Older workers view volunteering help as taboo, an insult, or something to be treated with suspicion.
Older workers have often been raised in the autocratic model of management and see asking for or accepting help as a sign of weakness or dependent status. Older workers tend to see teamwork as any meeting where they agree that a problem was solved, regardless of the methods used. Given the lack of empirical data on these stereotypes and their implications for the older worker and the aging workforce, these are key issues for our study to investigate further.