Introduction

Discrimination at the workplace can occur in two ways. The first reflects negative affect, which can be blatant or subtle. The second type refers to gender stereotypes that limit women through descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes. Descriptive stereotypes are for stereotypes that declare women unfit for certain roles. Prescriptive stereotypes punish women who violate the descriptive stereotypes.

Background on intergroup perception

Stereotypes refer to the categorical association of traits, behaviors and roles that perceivers make to group members based on their group membership. Discrimination refers to behaviors that advantage one group over another. Prejudice refers to the affect as the result of intergroup perception.  These three intergroup-related phenomena interlock: the effects of stereotyping increase with prejudice, which means that prejudiced perceivers are much more likely to discriminate against negatively stereotyped groups.

How do stereotypes form?

The above mentioned intergroup phenomena are the result of categorization processes. According to the social identity theory, people conceptualize the self at different levels of abstraction that range from subordinate to superordinate, and within which the corresponding identity (personal, social or collective) is salient and is dictated by context. Thus, the person views the self as a member of an ingroup that is distinctive and more positive than outgroups. Self-categorization theory suggests that depersonalization creates group phenomena, including stereotyping and prejudice. There are two principles of self-categorization theory which guide intergroup perception: comparative fit (meta-contrast ratio) and the normative fit. The comparative fit refers to the ratio of the perceived average difference between target group members and outgroup members over the average difference among target group members. The smaller the ratio, the more the target group embodies a coherent unit. So, categorized groups minimize within-group differences and maximize between-group differences. Normative fit refers to that these differences (within and between), match up to the perceiver's beliefs about the group in that context, so that the group fits expectations or socially shared meanings of those groups. Stereotypes come into existence because of an interplay between comparative and normative fit. Comparative fit affects the degree of group differentiation, while normative fit affects the content of a group's meaning.

There are three quadrants in stereotypes: ambivalent (cross-dimensional) stereotypes ("elderly people are nice, but incompetent"); stereotypically neither warm nor competent (poor people); and stereotypically both warm and competent (middle class people). Especially groups whose members are part of the least representative of the 'default or normal', receive the most stereotypes. 

It is argued that because of the speed of categorizing people in dimensions such as age, gender, race and ethnicity makes that stereotypes are most common in these dimensions. 

Where does intergroup prejudice originate?

According to scholars, group threats are a primary source of intergroup prejudice. When there is negative interdependence, this means that the perceiver sees outgroups as inhibiting one's own goals. This leads to anxiety and negative emotions, which can lead to prejudice toward the outgroup. Also, groups of people are perceived to be more competitive than individuals and especially as they increase in homogeneity and power. 

Stereotypes are convenient at times

Stereotypes can serve social and cognitive functions. The following models explain how people use stereotypes sometimes but not at other times.

Person perception models

Fiske and Neuberg's Continuum Model (CM) describe impression-formation processes. According to them, impression-formation compose a continuum ranging from category-based perception to attribute-based perception. It includes several steps, such as automatic categorization, category reconfirmation, and transformation of the initial category into just another attribute. These processes are mediated by the configuration of available information and motivational circumstances. 

Brewer (1999) suggests a Dual Process Model of Impression Formation. He identifies two routes to impression formation: controlled processing and automatic processing. Controlled processing refers to bottom-up processing and include a holistic and integrated understanding of the target person. It is volitional, effortful and goal-directed. Automatic processing is considered to be the default mode, in which existing knowledge is immediately activated and the target is represented as a conceptual whole and in terms of associations. 

Both of the mentioned models emphasize two processing modes: stereotype-based and attribute-based. Stereotype-based processing refers to making quick decisions through categorical information. Attribute-based processing refers to the effortful use of individuating information. In the Continuum Model, attention and motivation dictate which route a perceiver follows. It seems that people their motivation can and sometimes do override initial stereotype-based processing, as long as they have enough cognitive resources.

Stereotype utility

It is mentioned that stereotypes can have benefits, because they save mental effort. It seems that people rely more on stereotypes when they are under high cognitive load. 

Another reason for stereotyping may be to maintain the status quo. This refers to that people are motivated to perceive the world as fair and legitimate. Stereotypes serve this purpose, because they justify the current state ("my group deserves to be rich because we work hard; poor people are too lazy to succeed"). 

What is remarkable, is that people may go along with others' expectations of them, even when they are not accurate. This is termed 'self-fulfilling prophecy'. This especially holds with power differentials in the workplace.

When we meet a person for the first time and we thus do not have enough information to know whether that person is a good or bad person, we use stereotypes to decide whether to approach or to avoid the other person. 

Problems with stereotyping and prejudice

Accuracy

Judd and Park (1993) identified three types of inaccuracies: stereotypic inaccuracy, valence inaccuracy, and dispersion inaccuracy. Stereotypic inaccuracy refers to the overestimation of the target group's stereotypicality or underestimation of its stereotype-inconsistent qualities. Valence inaccuracy refers to exaggeration of the negativity of positivity of the group's stereotypes. Dispersion inaccuracy refers to the over or under-generalizations of variability between group members.

Processing biases

People have the tendency to confirm their stereotypes. Thus, they detect stereotype-consistent information more easily compared to stereotype-inconsistent information. There are two specific mechanisms for how people do this: they ignore subgroups and they create subtypes. Subgroups are clusters of people that differ from the overall stereotype. If people ignore subgroups, then they maintain their stereotypes. Subtyping happens when the perceiver isolates a few people who are stereotype-inconsistent. They conclude that they belong to the stereotype group, but are just a bit different.

People also have memory biases, both recall and recognition, which favor stereotype-consistent information over stereotype-inconsistent information. This is especially true when people are in complex environments. People also remember their ingroups better than their outgroups, and they show biases in their use of situational or dispositional explanations for ingroup and outgroup behaviors. An example of the latter is that when they experience ingroup failures, they attribute this to the situation rather than to the group ("because of the weather, we did not perform well"). However, when they experience success, they attribute this to group characteristics and not to the situation ("we won, because we are very smart). They do the exact opposite for outgroups.

What should be noted however is that discrimination against outgroups often happens through ingroup favoritism, rather than through outgroup derogation.

Racial stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination

Ambivalent racism is defined as white Americans' anti-black sentiments coexisting with sympathy for blacks. So, one the one hand, a white person might think of a black person as lazy and incompetent, but at the same time he or she might perceive them as to be disadvantaged in society and thus feel sympathy. These ambivalent attitudes are from two conflicting American values. Americans do endorse democratic ideals such as equality. This results in sympathy for societally disadvantaged groups. However, they also strive for independence, hard work and achievement. So, whoever fails in life is thought to not have worked hard enough or did not have the traits to "make it". So, ambivalent racism is the consequence of internally conflicting views.

Aversive racism, a related concept, refers to an intrapsychic conflict between interracial antipathy and concerns for egalitarian principles. They find the idea of themselves being racist, averse. The theory of aversive racism predicts that discrimination is most likely to occur when normative structure is weak. So, when there are vague guidelines for appropriate behavior, discrimination is most likely to occur for aversive racists.

Contemporary racism is the general term for symbolic and modern racism.

Gender stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination

Studies have shown that women employees are often not given enough credit for their successes. To overcome discrimination, they have to show abnormally high performance. Also, female employees' evaluations are less positive than male employees'.

Prescriptive stereotypes discriminate against women through disparate treatment. This means that they are punished when they violate expectations of how women should behave. For example, when women self-promote during interviews, they may succeed in establishing perceived competence, but they will probably be less liked and therefore less often hired. 

Managing diversity

There are two main sociocultural models of diversity: the awareness and inclusion of differences, and color-blindness models. The first refers to that differences between people are real, substantial and should be acknowledged and valued. The latter refers to that differences between people are merely superficial and that they are irrelevant to how people should treat each other. Thus, differences should be ignored.

Color-blindness

It seems that the color-blind policy is not realistic. No organization would probably hire someone without an interview. Also, the color-blind perspective lacks wide support and people are often unaware of their automatic categorization of others.

What to do?

To combat stereotyping and prejudice, we could use the two routes to perception: automatic and controlled. It seems that making people more motivated and informed, leads to more complex assessments. Organizations should also acknowledge the role of power. Powerful people are more vulnerable to stereotypes, because they often experience a high cognitive load. An organization could also create interdependence. An interdependent relationship leads to that the perceiver pays more attention to the target, because outcomes depend on that person.