What is this article about?

In this article, the author discusses different answers to the question of: “how can people of different cultural backgrounds encounter each other, seek avenues of mutual understanding, negotiate and compromise on initial positions, and achieve harmonious engagement?”. Specifically, the author has come up with insights based on the US American/Australian war in Vietnam.

What about group relations?

There are two distinct, but inter-related domains of psychological research that make up the field of group relations. These domains are acculturation and ethnic relations.

Acculturation

Acculturation refers to the dual process of cultural and psychological change which results from contact between two or more cultural groups and their members. On a group level, this involves changes in social structures and institutions and in cultural practices. On an individual level, this involves changes in a person’s behavior. These changes result from a long-term process: sometimes years, generations, and sometimes even centuries. Cultural and psychological changes that involve different forms of mutual accommodations which lead to longer-term psychological and sociocultural adaptations between both groups is called acculturation. Change and contact can result from different factors, such as colonization, military invasion, migration, and sojourning (tourism, international study, overseas posting).

Acculturation involves learning each other’s languages, sharing each other’s food preferences, and adopting forms of dressing and social interactions that are appropriate for each group. Sometimes this happens easily, but it can also create culture conflict and acculturative stress. An important characteristic of acculturation is it’s variability: there are large group and individual differences in the ways in which people try to achieve acculturation (acculturation strategies), and in the degree to which they achieve successful acculturation. There are also variations within families: family members acculturate at different rates and with different goals. This can lead to conflict between family members and to more difficult adaptation.

What is the concept of acculturation?

There are many competing views about the meaning of acculturation. The author suggests two different formulations which are widely used. In the first formulation, acculturation is seen as one aspect of the broader concept of cultural change. This means that acculturation takes place in the settled or dominant group as well as in the non-dominant group. Acculturation is different from assimilation. In the second formulation, a few extra features are added, such as change that is indirect (not cultural but ecological) and delayed (internal adjustments). Acculturation is also said to be ‘reactive’: by rejecting the cultural influence from the dominant group and changing back towards a more ‘traditional’ way of life.

Graves (1967) introduced the concept of ‘psychological acculturation’. This is defined as changes in an individual who is a participant in a culture contact situation, and is influenced both directly by the external culture and by the changing culture of which the individual is a member.

What about acculturation contexts?

It is important that research on acculturation is conducted in different cultural contexts. Both cultures that are in contact need to be understood. There are five aspects of cultural contexts: the two original cultures (A and B), the two changing ethnocultural groups (A’ and B’), and the nature of their contact and interactions. These are visible in Figure 2.

The authors use the immigration process as an example. The society of origin is A and the society of settlement is B, and the changing cultural features following contact are termed A’ and B’. To fully understand acculturation, one needs to start with a comprehensive examination of the societal contexts. This means that cultural characteristics of the society of origin need to be described. This has the goal of understanding where the person is coming from and to establish cultural features for comparison with the society of settlement. Researchers also need to study the political, economic, and demographic conditions which individuals face in their society of origin. This has the goal of understanding the degree of voluntariness in the motivation to migrate of individuals. Migrants can be described on a continuum between reactive and proactive. Reactive migrants are motivated by negative factors (war), and proactive migrants are motivated by positive factors (getting a better life somewhere else). These factors are also described as push/pull in earlier literature.

Then, with regard to the society of settlement, other factors need to be described. For example, one needs to study the general orientations or attitudes of a society and its citizens toward immigration and pluralism. It is important to understand the historical and attitudinal situation faced by immigrants in the society of settlement. For example, some societies are accepting of cultural pluralism that results from immigration. Other societies try to eliminate diversity, and some societies even try to achieve segregation or marginalization of their diverse populations. Murphy (1965) proposed that societies that are supportive of cultural pluralism provide a more positive settlement context for two reasons. First, they are less likely to enforce cultural change or exclusion on immigrants. Second, they are also more likely to provide social support to immigrants.

What are acculturation strategies?

As noted, there are large differences in how people seek to achieve acculturations. These are called acculturation strategies. There are two components of acculturation strategies: attitudes (an individual’s preference about how to acculturate) and behavior (a person’s actual activities). There are four acculturation strategies which are derived from two basic issues that all acculturating individuals face:

1. A relative preference for maintaining one’s heritage culture and identity;
2. A relative preference for having contact with and participating in the larger society along with other ethnocultural groups.

Non-dominant groups

When individuals do not wish to maintain their cultural identity and seek daily interaction with other cultures, this means that they try to shed their heritage culture and that they become absorbed into the dominant society. This is called an assimilation strategy. In contrast, when individuals place value on holding on to their original culture and wish to avoid interaction with others, then this is a separation strategy. When there is an interest in both maintaining one’s heritage culture while in daily interactions with other groups, this is called an integration strategy. This means that some degree of cultural integrity is maintained, but that an individual is seeking to become an integral part of the larger society. Finally, there can also be a marginalization strategy. This means that there is little possibility of interest for individuals to have relationships with others and also little interest in maintaining the heritage culture.

For dominant groups, other terms should be used. Integration is only a ‘free choice’ when the dominant society is open and inclusive towards cultural diversity. This means that mutual accommodation is needed to attain integration. Non-dominant groups must adopt basic values of the larger society, and the dominant group must be prepared to adapt national institutions to meet the needs of all groups that live together.

Conceptualization of acculturation strategies

In the article, the chosen conceptual approach of acculturation strategies is based on three underlying dimensions: cultural maintenance, contact and participation, and the power to decide on how acculturation will take place. However, researchers often considered only one dimension and assumed that non-dominant groups and individuals would move away from some ‘traditional’  way of living toward a way of living that resembles the dominant society.

Another issue with regard to the conceptualization is that there is little empirical basis for the four acculturation strategies.

What is acculturative stress?

There are two different ways to conceptualize outcomes of acculturation. In the first conceptualization, it is about behavioral shifts. Behavioral shifts are based on observations on changes in an individual’s behavior which take place easily and are usually non-problematic. This process of behavioral shifts involve three sub-processes: cultural shedding, culture learning, and cultural conflict. The first two of these involve the selective, accidental, or deliberate loss of behaviors and a replacement by behaviors which allow an individual to better ‘fit’ with the society of settlement. This process is also often called ‘adjustment’. Sometimes conflicts can occur. When a person is assimilating, these conflicts can be resolved by the acculturating person acting in accordance with the behavioral norms of the dominant group. When someone is pursuing separation, individuals may withdraw to avoid cultural conflict. When individuals seek integration, conflict can be avoided only when the two groups in contact agree that mutual accommodation is the appropriate course to follow. Lastly, when individuals aim for marginalization, they have to deal with cultural conflict daily, and can resolve this by seeking little improvement in either culture.

When there are high levels of cultural conflict, then this is called acculturative stress. This means that individuals understand that they are facing problems because of their intercultural contact which cannot be dealt with easily or quickly.

What about adaptation?

To cope with cultural changes, individuals often adapt and this can lead to long-term adaptations. Adaptation is defined as the relatively stable change that takes place in an individual or group in response to external demands. Furthermore, adaptation may or may not improve the match between individuals and their environments. This thus means that adaptation is not an outcome that is only positive. Adaptation can also be divided into psychological and sociocultural adaptation. Psychological adaptation is defined as one’s psychological and physical well-being. Sociocultural adaptation refers to how well an acculturating individual is able to manage their daily life in the new cultural context. These two are conceptually distinct, but they show a high correlation. However, they are empirically distinct in that psychological problems often arise quick after contact, and decrease over time. Sociocultural adaption shows a linear improvement over time.

Proper psychological adaptation is predicted by personality variables, life change events, and social support. Sociocultural adaptation is predicted by cultural knowledge, degree of contact, and positive intergroup attitudes.

It seems that individuals who pursue and accomplish integration are better adapted. In contrast, individuals who marginalize are the least well adapted.

What can be concluded?

Currently, there are two areas of application which are receiving attention in research and policy development. The first is the domain of family life, which include the relationship among individuals within the family and between family members and the outside world. The other domain is in the area of immigration and settlement policies, which include issues of changes in the institutions of a society, and the promotion of cultural diversity.

Family life

Parents and children hold different views about parent-adolescent relationships during acculturation. This means that parents have higher scores on a measure of family obligations than their adolescent children. In contrast, immigrant youth have higher scores on a scale of adolescent rights (independence in dating) than their parents. The differences between parents and adolescents in their views about family obligations vary according to which acculturation strategy the adolescent is in. For example, adolescents in a national profile (preferring assimilation, having a stronger national identity, and having more national friends) show greater discrepancies between their views and the views of their parents. These discrepancies are associated with poorer psychological and sociocultural adaptation of the adolescents. Another project on family life focuses on similarities and differences in family structure and function. These projects have shown that there are variations in family functioning that is linked to ecological contexts (reliance on agriculture, general affluence) and to variation in socio-political contexts (education, religion). It seems that hierarchical and extended family arrangements have more conservative values in high agrarian and low affluence societies. In contrast, families high in affluence and education are more nuclear, less hierarchical and show more independence. These differences in family life are likely to lead to variations in acculturation strategies, acculturative stress and psychological and sociocultural adaptation.

With regard to public policies, the authors of the article propose that public policies and programs which aim to reduce acculturative stress and improve psychological and sociocultural adaptation should emphasizes the integration approach to acculturation.

What is this article about?

Stereotypes can harm social life, because they are shared within societies. Individuals’ well-being and opportunities can be harmed by stereotypes by for example fostering discrimination in hiring, and this is also true for positive beliefs. Successful interventions must break the vicious cycle by which stereotypes come into existence and endure over time.

How are stereotypes formed?

Stereotypes are acquired: people are not born with stereotypes in their mind. They stem from observations, and take form by processes of social cognition. The first step is categorization: the mental sorting of people into groups (based on for example their sex, race, age). Upon observing others, perceivers spontaneously infer traits that explain the behaviors that they observe. These inferences are related to social roles. For instance, the role of mother requires caring behaviours and therefore the role of ‘mother’ triggers the inference of traits such as ‘warm’, and ‘kind’. For some social categories, such as sex and age, many individuals have a lot of direct observations. Other categories, such as sexual orientation, are less visible. Exposure to the portrayal of members in legends, novels, songs, movies, etcetera., initiate associative processes based on the coactivation of social categories and social roles. Information from multiple sources increase confidence in stereotypes.

Studies have found that stereotypes of many categories could be predicted by the attributes associated with their typical occupational roles. For example, it was found that the stereotype of ‘the rich’ was similar to the attributes of the roles of corporate executives, doctors, and bankers, in which ‘the rich’ are overrepresented. There is also a link between social roles and stereotypes. For instance, when a gay man was portrayed in a highly male-dominated occupational role, his ascribed traits shifted from a less feminine to a more masculine direction. Roles can thus influence the stereotypes that are associated with social categories. Stereotypes that are formed are easily maintained and reinforced. As an example of a vicious cycle, consider the stereotype that Asian Americans are smart and good at math. These beliefs stem from observations of Asian Americans’ frequent presence in occupational roles in technology and science. People tend to be biased to confirm their expectations, for example by seeking stereotype-consistent information. This can also lead to that Asian Americans are privileged, in that they have higher access to roles requiring technical and mathematical competence. However, it also restricts their access to roles that require other qualities, such as leadership roles, which are defined by qualities such as assertiveness and competitiveness. Another way in which stereotyping can induce a cycle is that, roles can be shaped to fit the stereotype of the people.

How can stereotypes be changed?

In a meta-analyses of interventions aimed at changing stereotypes, it was found that there is little evidence of efficacy of these interventions. It seems that multiple interventions over long time are necessary to produce enduring change. Most diversity-training interventions in organizations have also not been effective in reducing discriminatory behavior. The basic weakness of these interventions is that they attempt to cut off the weeds (stereotypes) at the ground, instead of digging them out by the roots. This means that the weeds will grow back. Thus, it is necessary to change the roles in which category members are typically observed, to roles that require different attributes. For example, women’s increasing labour-force participation and education during the years 1946-2018 lead to that they were associated with a gain in competence. Thus, changing social roles is an effective route to changing stereotypes. However, this is an incremental process which does not happen quickly. It happens when one or more well-qualified persons take on an unfamiliar role. Governments and organizations should facilitate the entry of persons from underrepresented social categories into new roles, as this can help to accelerate stereotype change. Well-designed interventions can thus encourage people to enter non-traditional roles by providing information and support. Some programs motivate young people to undertake careers that are unusual for their social category.

What can be concluded?

Stereotypes arise from observations of members of social categories that act within their usual roles. Changing stereotypes and reducing prejudice requires changing the roles that are typically occupied by category members. Without such role change, a vicious cycle will continue to repeat itself. Social policies must be targeted at inducing this change in social roles.

How does diversity influence the functioning of a work-group?

Many organizational experts from various disciplines have tried to find an answer to this question and they have come to the conclusion that the best answer is: "it depends".

Variety can take many forms and it depends on:

1. The kind of diversity
2. The nature of the work-group
3. The organizational context to which it belongs and how this diversity influences the work process.

The researchers Ely and Thomas use the existing literature on this subject to investigate which factors give the best explanation of the circumstances in which group diversity in the work situation promotes or hinders the functioning of these groups.

They are less interested in specific aspects of diversity (race, gender, etc.) than in trying to understand the influence of the more general category of cultural diversity. Ely and Thomas come to the conclusion that work units are often different from diversity and that this divergent orientation has a major influence on the functioning of the group.

American management literature is overflowing with advice to managers to promote diversity in the workplace in order to increase the effectiveness of the work-groups. However, empirical research into whether and how diversity relates to the functioning of work-groups is limited. The conclusions vary and partly depend on which variables the diversity consists of:

• Gender
• Variety
• Hierarchical or functional place in the organization
• Idiosyncratic (personal, peculiar) attitudes
• Values ​​and preferences of the participants in the work-group

This means that management consultants and managers who want to promote diversity must start from a combination of common sense and relying on their own views and arguments that they put forward when asking how companies/organizations should deal with this issue.

Ely and Thomas therefore investigate the experiences of people in work-groups and the conditions under which diversity in the work-groups promotes or hinders the functioning of the work-group. Theories are based on these experiences. Ely and Thomas distinguish three different principles from which people in a work-group positively assess diversity. Each of these three has different consequences for the work-group's ability to reap the benefits of cultural diversity. The results of this research are critically compared with the themes and fundamental assumptions of earlier research. Proposals are made to both researchers and practitioners who are interested in diversity to take new paths.

After an elaboration on how diversity within groups is approached by researchers (demographic, ethnic, racial, functional background, cultural, physical, social class and gender differences). This includes the aspect of power in the organization (value allocation) based on dominance differences. Ely and Thomas come to the conclusion that many of these different aspects can be summarized under the heading 'cultural diversity'. The relationship between variety of cultural diversity and the functioning of the work-groups is also influenced by the quality of the relationships between groups, by the degree to which people feel valued, and respected and the meaning (content) of the cultural identity within the work-group. This is all influenced by a general (positive or negative) approach of diversity.

Research population

Ely and Thomas focus their research on three different service organizations; a law firm, a financial service organization, and a consultancy firm.

Data collection

The research data was collected through interviews and observations during staff meetings of those three organizations investigated.

Data analysis

The data analysis consisted of independently reviewing the notes of the interviews and of the observations during the staff meetings of each of the three organizations. And determining themes that indicated similarities and differences between the three organizations, in particular with regard to the question to what extent these differences correlated with promoting or hindering the effective functioning of the organizations.

The researchers came to the conclusion that they had come to the same insights: three different perspectives seemed to distinguish how members of the working groups created diversity in their groups and how they subsequently responded. This proved important variables of how the groups functioned. This finding was used as a working hypothesis in which the other research data were framed.

Views of work-groups on diversity (diversity)

The analysis of the research data supported the hypothesis that the views (principles) of work-groups with regard to diversity were related to the different levels of the individual and the functioning of the group. We found that there were three views on diversity that seemed to have different implications as to how well people in that group functioned and therefore the likelihood that their work-group would reap the benefits of diversity:

• The integration and learning aspect
• The access and legitimacy aspect
• The discrimination and fairness aspect

1. The integration and learning aspect (perspective)

In a group with great cultural diversity, the different insights, skills and experiences that employees have developed as members of groups with different cultural identity potential can tap into valuable resources that the working group can use to redefine its basic task in terms of its markets, products and strategies. This approach clearly helped the law firm and the financial services organization.

At the law firm they started with a completely white male staff, but gradually they also wanted to shift the field of work to sectors where colored low-income groups (especially women). At the beginning of that changing view, a Latino staff member was assumed who had different insights, which were increasingly used and which led the law firm to recruit more and more people from other cultural identity groups.

2. Access and legitimacy aspect (perspective)

The access and legitimacy aspect of diversity is based on the observation that the market and its component parts are culturally diverse. As a result, it is wise for the organization to assemble parts of its labor potential in such a way that access and legitimacy are obtained in these different culturally diverse market segments.

3. Discrimination and fairness aspect (perspective)

This is characterized by the belief that a culturally heterogeneous workers' composition is morally necessary because it gives a fair chance to all. The organization for this purpose was the consultancy agency. This ethical approach was expressed very clearly in the interviews.

Quality (quality) of intergroup relations

The integration and learning approach has as its starting point the notion that a heterogeneous group of people comes together with the intention of learning from each other how to work towards the objective of the organization. However, this entails a kind of tension in discussions in which people struggled with the fact that they had to listen carefully before deciding how to tackle the work.

The significance of cultural identity

The integration and learning theory emphasizes cultural identity as a potential source of insight and skills. Ethnic minorities explained that their racial group membership was a big part of how they saw their work.

Introduction

This article reflects two major research question. First: What are the dynamics of a subtle form of racism, aversive racism, that exists among well-intentioned Whites? Second: What can we do about it?

Gaertner studied aversive racism. This study looked at the willingness of registered Liberal and Conservative Party members in New York City to help a Black or White motorist whose car had broken down on a local highway. The motorists were thus Black or White and were identifiable on the basis of their dialects. They made phone calls, claiming to have been dialing their mechanic's number from a public telephone along the highway. They explained that they now needed the respondent's help to call the mechanic because they used their last coin for this wrong-number call. It was found that Conservative Party members discriminated by helping Black callers less often than White callers, whereas Liberal Party members did not discriminate. However, they did discriminate in a different way. Even though Liberals helped Black and White callers equivalently when they knew their assistance was needed, they terminated their help more readily for Black than for White callers prior to learning that the callers needed their help. Thus, they hung up prematurely. These results were puzzling and the authors of this article aimed to explain these findings by applying the notion of aversive racism. Thus, they wanted to explain why nonprejudiced Liberals discriminated against Blacks, but only when they were not sure that their help was needed.

Contemporary Bias: Aversive Racism

Gunnar Myrdal pointed to the paradox between egalitarian values and racist traditions in the United States. He named this "the American dilemma". This dilemma reflects the tension between central principles of equality and fairness in the society and the daily appearance of systematic prejudice and discrimination, at an individual and societal level, which produces racial inequality and reinforces racial disparities. Sixty years after Myrdal's observation, the American dilemma is still evident. This principle of equality remains a fundamental social value, and since the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, overt expressions of prejudice of Whites towards Blacks in the United States have declined significantly over the past several decades. However, there is still evidence of racial disparity and discrimination still remains. 

Joel Kovel coined the term 'aversive racism', and distinguished it from 'dominative racism'. Aversive racists do sympathize with victims of past injustice, they support the principle of racial equality, and regard themselves as nonprejudiced, but, they also possess negative feelings and beliefs about Blacks. This may be unconscious. It is different from dominative racism, in that it is more subtle and that it is presumed to characterize the attitudes of most well-educated and liberal Whites in the United States. However, the consequences of aversive racism are as intense as traditional racism.

The nature of aversive racism

Thus, many Whites consciously, explicitly, and sincerely support egalitarian principles and believe that they are nonprejudiced. However, they still have negative feelings and beliefs about Blacks and other historically disadvantaged groups. However, these feelings and beliefs happen unconsciously and develop as a consequence of normal and unavoidable functional, cognitive, motivational and social-cultural processes. Cognitive processes refer to that people normally categorize others into groups, in terms that delineate one's own group from other groups. This mere categorization of people into the ingroup and outgroup is enough to initiate bias. Therefore, the existence of both the egalitarian values and unconscious negative feelings toward Blacks, makes aversive racism a complex construct.

When interracial interaction is unavoidable, aversive racists experience anxiety and discomfort. Consequently, they try to disengage from the interaction as quickly as possible. Therefore, they are more motivated to avoid wrongdoing in interracial interactions. However, they still manifest their negative feelings in subtle, indirect, or rationalizable ways. Thus, the "aversive" in aversive racism reflects two types of aversion. First, because of the anxiety and discomfort, aversive racists find interracial interactions aversive and try to avoid it. Second, because aversive racists believe that they are nonprejudiced and consciously embrace egalitarian ideals, they find any thoughts or indications that they might be a racist, aversive. Therefore, they are motivated to avoid wrongdoing and acting inappropriately in interracial situation. They try to avoid thinking bad thoughts about Blacks, experiencing bad feelings towards Blacks, and behaving in a discriminatory way toward Blacks. 

The expression of subtle bias

The aversive racism framework helps to identify when discrimination against Blacks and other minority groups will or will not occur. Old-fashioned racists exhibit direct and overt patterns of discrimination, whereas aversive racists' actions may appear more variable and inconsistent. Sometimes they discriminate and at other times they do not. 

The framework suggests that, because aversive racists consciously recognize and aspire to be nonprejudiced, they will not discriminate in situations with strong social norms when discrimination is obvious to others and themselves. The authors propose that when people are presented with a situation in which the appropriate response is clear, aversive racists will not discriminate against Blacks. In these circumstances, aversive racists will be especially motivated to avoid feelings, beliefs, and behaviors that could be associated with racist intent. However, as mentioned before, they do possess (unconscious) negative feelings towards Blacks. They will eventually express these feelings, but in subtle, indirect, and rationalizable ways. Thus, discrimination will occur in situations in which social norms are weak or when the guidelines for appropriate behavior are vague. Also, discrimination will occur when an aversive racist can justify or rationalize a negative response on the basis of some factor other than race. Under these circumstances, aversive racists may engage in behaviors that ultimately harm Blacks, but in ways that allow them to maintain their self-image as nonprejudiced.

Empirical evidence of the influence of aversive racism

An experiment showed that aversive racism can operate in dramatic and consequential ways. The stabbing of a woman, Kitty Genovese, lead to an experiment. In the case of Kitty Genovese, 38 bystanders witnessed the stabbing, but did not intervene to help. When looking at explanations for this behavior, it seems that feelings of responsibility play a key role. When a person witnesses an emergency and knows that he or she is the only bystander, this person will most likely help. In contrast, when a person witnesses an emergency but believes that there are other people who might help, the responsibility for helping is share. This decreases the likelihood of that person to help.

This incident inspired the authors to conduct an experiment in which White participants witnessed a staged emergency involving a Black or White victim. They made some participants believe that they would be the only witness to the emergency, while others believed that there would be other White people who also witnessed the emergency. The authors hypothesized that, because aversive racists do not act in overtly racist ways, Whites would not discriminate when they were the only witness. However, Whites were expected to be less helpful to Black than to White victims when they had a justifiable excuse not to get involved, such as the belief that another witness would help. The findings supported their hypotheses. When White participants believed that they were the only witness, they helped White and Black victims equivalently. However, when they thought that there were other witnesses, they could rationalize a decision not to help on the basis of some factor other than race. In this case, they helped Black victims only half as often as White victims. Thus, the subtle biases can have dramatic and life-threatening consequences. There are also other examples of the subtle bias. For example, it happens in personnel selection decisions and in college admission decisions. Hodson and colleagues found that more racially biased Whites weighed the weaker aspect of the applicant's credentials as more important for admissions decisions when the candidate was Black than when the candidate was White. There is also evidence that Blacks and Whites are not treated equally under the law. Blacks have been more likely to be convicted of crimes and, if they are convicted, sentenced to longer terms for similar crimes, particularly if the victim is White. The authors propose that aversive racism is particularly common in the legal context because evidence may offer nonracial justifications for actions. 

Dissociated attitudes: explicit and implicit

Explicit attitudes and stereotypes operate consciously and are exemplified by traditional, self-report measures of these constructs. In contrast, implicit attitudes and stereotypes are evaluations and beliefs that are automatically activated by the mere presence of the attitude object. Implicit attitudes and stereotypes function in an unconscious and unintentional manner. To assess implicit attitudes and stereotypes, often response latency procedures, memory tasks, physiological measures and indirect self-report measures are used. The authors have shown consistent evidence of Whites' implicit racial bias. For example, they found that by subliminally presenting schematic faces of Blacks and Whites systematically influenced the reaction times with which Whites indicated whether positive or negative traits describe a certain person. And, lower reaction times reflect greater associations. They also found that White participants have more positive associations with Whites than with Blacks as well as more negative associations with Blacks than with Whites, even though they were not aware of this. Also, Whites' unconscious attitudes are largely dissociated from their conscious, self-reported attitudes. The correlation between these attitudes (implicit and explicit) is .24, which shows that people's self-reports (explicit attitudes) do not match their implicit attitudes (the associations they make). 

Implicit Bias and Interracial Interaction

The authors found that Whites' unconscious negative attitudes predict nonverbal cues of discomfort (increased blinking) and aversion (decreased eye contact) toward Blacks, whereas Whites self-reported conscious attitudes predict overt evaluations and indications of liking towards Blacks. This means that aversive racists do have positive conscious attitudes and do want to be supportive of Blacks, but they also have unconscious negative attitudes or associations and are likely to convey mixed messages in interracial interactions.

In less controllable and monitorable nonverbal behaviors, Whites' implicit racial attitudes predicted bias, instead of their self-reported prejudice.

Blacks and Whites also have divergent views on the quality of interracial interactions. White participants often believe that they behaved in a friendly and nonprejudiced way and that the interaction was positive and productive. However, their Black interaction partners were less satisfied with the interaction compared to Whites. Also, both the Black and White participants were unaware of the different experiences of the interaction.

The Common Ingroup Identity Model

The authors wanted to look at what could help against bias. 

Social Categorization and Social Identity

Research has shown that people favor ingroup members over outgroup members in their evaluations, feelings, and actions. Bias that follows from social categorization is often the consequence of ingroup favoritism instead of an anti-outgroup orientation.

The authors hypothesized that if members of different groups are induced to conceive themselves as a single group rather than as two completely separate groups, the attitudes towards former outgroup members will become more positive through the cognitive and motivational forces that result from ingroup formation, which is a consequence that could increase the sense of connectedness across group lines.

Thus, it may be possible to affect the level of category inclusiveness people use when categorizing other people, including themselves. It may also be possible to alter whether people identify themselves as distinct individuals or as group members. So, in other words, it is possible to engineer a recategorization or decategorization of perceived group boundaries in ways that reduce intergroup bias and conflict.

Initial Empirical Investigations

The authors wondered which factors might lead to more inclusive group representations, especially among different racial groups. It is known that feelings and behaviors toward outgroup members becomes more positive and intergroup relations become more harmonious when groups work together under certain conditions. These conditions are outlined in the Contact Hypothesis, and include equal status between the groups, opportunities for self-revealing interactions, and equalitarian norms endorsed by relevant authority. 

The Dynamics of the Common Ingroup Identity Model

The Common Ingroup Identity Model identifies potential antecedents and outcomes of recategorization. 

Common Identity and Motivation in Interracial Interaction

Thus, the Common Ingroup Identity Model can potentially change the motivational orientation or intentions of aversive racists from trying to avoid wrongdoing to trying to do what is right. The authors hypothesized that because aversive racists have the primary motivation to avoid wrongdoing and thus to suppress negative thoughts and feelings, explicitly instructing participants to avoid wrongdoing compared to instructing them to do nothing, would lead to a stronger accessibility of negative thoughts after interacting with a Black partner. Participants who were instructed to behave correctly would be expected to escape such a rebound effect. The results support these expectations. When the partner was White, the experimental conditions did not differ significantly in the accessibility of negative thoughts from one another or from baseline. However, when the confederate was Black, the increased accessibility of negative relative to positive characteristics in the avoid wrongdoing and no instructions conditions was significantly greater than in the do right and same team conditions. Thus, the development of a common ingroup identity can affect motivation in interracial situations from one of suppressing negative thoughts, feelings, and actions to one that is positive and more prosocial. However, our findings lead some people to question whether developing a common ingroup identity is a realistic strategy.

The Green Circle Elementary School Anti-Bias Education Program

The Green Circle Elementary School intervention aims to teach children to be more inclusive in terms of bringing those who differ from themselves literally into their circle of caring and sharing into their own circle of caring and sharing fosters appreciation of their common humanity as well as respect for their differences. The intervention works like this: each facilitator visits each class for about 40 minutes and shows children a small green circle on a board. The facilitator then states: "Whenever you see the green circle, you should think about your world of people: the people who you care about and the people who care about you." A stick figure is added to the circle and the students are told that the figure represents themselves. The facilitator explains that each person has "a big job of deciding who is going to be in your circle, how to treat people, and how big your circle will grow" and engages children in a variety of exercises designed to expand this circle. Then, the facilitator states: "All of us belong to one family-the human family." Then, the Green Circle assumes that an appreciation of common humanity will increase children's positive attitudes toward people who would otherwise remain outside of their circle of inclusion.

Based on the goals of the Green Circle Program and the principles of the Common Ingroup Identity Model, the authors expected that children who receive the program would act more inclusive toward others who are different than themselves in playing and sharing. The results showed that first- and second-grade children in fairly well-integrated classrooms still had a general preference for playing and sharing with children of the same race than a different race. However, the results also showed that the Green Circle intervention did lead children to be more inclusive in terms of their most preferred playmate. More specifically, children who participated in Green Circle activities showed a significantly greater increase in willingness to select a child they "would most want to play with" who was different from them. 

What is this article about?

Groups, organizations and societies often exist of different subgroups, and are thus not homogenous. These subgroups are based on intragroup roles, or on wider social categories such as profession, socioeconomic status (SES), gender, religion, music preferences, and many other things. In science, there are also groups. These subgroups are part of a larger group. As an explanation, think of cognitive and social psychologists. These psychologists are part of the group ‘psychologists’. Psychologists themselves are also part of a group. For example, sociologists and psychologists are both social scientists. Thus, groups often exist of subgroups with a superordinate identity group (psychologists, social scientists).

This characteristic of groups is often not captured by the commonly used ingroup-outgroup manner, in which many scientists believe social categorization to operate.

In this article, the authors explain the psychological processes that happen when group relations take place within the context of a superordinate identity. They use a social identity theory perspective for this, and they base their ideas on studies on multiculturalism, and social psychological research. The goal of the article is to present a general, integrative framework for understanding the dynamics of subgroup relations and subgroup identification. Their model is based on ideas and studies that have looked at the way that superordinate identity pressures can lead to intersubgroup conflicts. A central idea in their framework is that the superordinate identity should be viewed as a source of positive identity that does not conflict with the subgroup identity. They argue that social harmony is most likely to be achieved by maintaining and not weakening the subgroup identities.

What is the Social Identity Theory?

The Social Identity Theory is about category membership and identity threat. It had a significant impact on social psychology. Originally, it focused on the relation between people’s striving for self-esteem through positive social identity and people’s beliefs about the nature of intergroup relations. Later, self-categorization theory came into existence. This theory is the same as Social Identity Theory, but incorporated an explanation of how social categorization can produce group prototype-based depersonalization. In sum, the social identity perspective states that people are motivated to identify themselves in group terms, because of two reasons: they strive for uncertainty reduction, and they want to enhance their self-esteem. This means that people want to reduce uncertainty about who they are, how they should behave, and how other people will behave. By means of social categorization, they achieve these goals, because these categorizations can help them to achieve structure and context in who they are. Self-categorization means that people define themselves in relations to others, and also prescribes one’s perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors. Thus, uncertainty is a motivation for self-categorization and can cause groups to preserve or enhance their distinctiveness and entitativity. Another motive that people have is a self-enhancement (self-esteem) motive, which means that social categorizations are often given a value (good or bad). Therefore, groups try to be better than other groups, and they strive for positive social identity and positive self-esteem for their members.

Next to ingroup and outgroup attitudes, people also hold ‘social beliefs’, which are attitudes and beliefs about the nature of the relation between groups. These social beliefs are thus about intergroup boundaries, the relative status of groups, and the legitimacy and stability of such relations. In turn, these social beliefs determine the general strategies and specific behaviors that the group members adopt to reach their goals of self-enhancement and uncertainty reduction.

The Social Identity Theory acknowledges the existence of subgroups. Thus, they state that intergroup comparisons often occur within the context of higher order similarities.

Turner and colleagues proposed three levels of self-categorization that are important to the self-concept:

1. The superordinate category of the self as human being (the human identity);
2. The intermediate level of the self as a member of a social ingroup, defined against other human groups (social identity);
3. The subordinate level of personal self-categorizations which are based on interpersonal comparisons (personal identity).

Even though Social Identity Theory acknowledges subgroups, it does not elaborate on gradations of the intermediate level. Thus, there is a need for elaboration on the psychology of subgroup relations.

What is meant with Threat and Intersubgroup Relations?

A key component of the Social Identity Theory is that people strive for positive intergroup distinctiveness. Therefore, humans engage in prejudice, discrimination, negative stereotyping, and other aggressive intergroup behaviors. These can help them to achieve positive distinctiveness. Other, more positive behaviours to achieve a positive distinctiveness is the use of ingroup solidarity, the use of totems, icons, and symbols. The question then is: what predicts a group’s tendency to engage in negative, aggressive behaviors instead of positive behaviours?

An answer is on this question is ‘threat’. This is often called ‘threat to identity’, but this term is often vague. For example, threat can emerge when a group is criticized or attacked (self-enhancement considerations). It can also emerge when the intergroup boundaries are blurred (distinctiveness). Thus, when there is identity threat, the goal for distinctiveness may lead to aggressive behaviours. When there is no identity threat (in the case of blurred boundaries), this may lead to more positive and benign strategies.

In sum, social identity threat can provoke behavior that is aimed at protecting or enhancing a social identity. This social identity can be threatened if a group has the possibility of a loss of status, an absence of the possibility to improve low status, if there is uncertainty about the intergroup boundaries, low entitativity, or a poorly defined ingroup prototype. When groups perceive threat, this strengthens subgroup solidarity, sharpens intergroup boundaries, accentuates ethnocentric attitudes and behavior, inhibits superordinate group identification, and it produces a more polarized ingroup prototype, that lead to a more orthodox subgroup with more hierarchical leaderships and power structures.

The paradox in this is that the superordinate group identification can bind subgroups together in a more powerful group, but it can also destroy subgroup identities.

What about Conflict and Harmony Between Subgroups?

Studies on conflict and harmony between subgroups have followed two different approaches. First, there is the political science perspective on assimilation and multiculturalism. Second, there is social psychological research on intergroup contact and social harmony.

Assimilation and Multiculturalism

Assimilation

Encouraging members of competing groups to define their similarities at the superordinate level to encourage assimilation within the superordinate group, is called ‘assimilation’. Assimilation is based on the idea that the system becomes intragroup and that problematic intergroup boundaries diminish.

There are two types of assimilation. Melting-pot assimilation refers to the belief that through shared goals and intensive social interaction, old ethnic loyalties melt away and change into a new, homogenous society. Minority-group assimilation refers to that nondominant subgroups adopt the language, values, and systems of a dominant subgroup. These political models are different, but they share a common idea that subgroup identification reflects a problematic or immature stage of development. Thus, all effort should be put in toward refocusing group loyalties: from the subgroup level to the superordinate level. Examples of assimilation-related quotes are: “One nation, one flag”, and “It does not matter if you are Black or White, we are all humans”.

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is different than assimilation, because it assumes that ethnic identities are inescapable and that they are fundamental to humans’ self-concept. Therefore, individuals are motivated to retain their cultural heritages. Multiculturalism aims to preserve this integrity, while also stimulating ethnic groups to interact and coexist harmoniously. A limitation of traditional multiculturalism research is that it is often global and descriptive, and is not able to examine underlying psychological processes. It also does not seem to be generalizable outside the specific context in which it was studied. Another limitation is that it is narrow in its focus. It lacks a general, theory-based model of subgroup relations that can apply to all subgroups.

What is the common ingroup identity model?

The common ingroup identity model states that contact is beneficial when an individual’s representation changes from two separate groups (us, them) to one (we). It does not try to eliminate group boundaries. Instead, it describes a process by which group boundaries are defined by a superordinate identity. When a person is categorized as ‘an ingroup member’, then evaluations of this person should become more positive, and biases should be reduced. This common ingroup identity may be reached by making the superordinate identity more salient, or by introducing certain factors such as shared goals. This increases the entitativity of the superordinate group.

Studies and experiments have shown that contact reduces intergroup bias, because it changes the perception from ‘two groups’ to ‘one group’.

It is a bit similar to the assimilationist models. However, the common identity theory argues that the superordinate category should be strengthened, and that subgroups should not be eliminated. The best situation is one in which the group members remain a distinct identity, but perceive themselves as part of the same team. But why is this the best situation? Well, if outgroup members are perceived as the same, then contact will not help to change people’s feelings of that group. Thus, previous subgroup identities should not be eliminated, because it reduces the likelihood that positive attitude changes will be generalized outside of the cooperative environment.

What is the mutual intergroup differentiation model?

According to the mutual intergroup differentiation model, there are historical and sociological reasons in many intergroup settings that suggest that it would be impossible to completely diminish social identities. Attempts to do so will be perceived as ‘a threat to those groups identities’. In turn, a reaction could be increased intergroup differentiation or dislike, because the group will try to reassert their distinctiveness. The model proposes two methods of minimizing threat. First, each group’s areas of expertise should be recognized, and each expertise area should be equally valued. Second, when the groups get in contact, the salience of the original group should be preserved. This model is a bit similar to multiculturalism.

How can we generalize categorization models to noncontact situations?

The models described above, the common ingroup identity model and the mutual intergroup differentiation model were originally specified to account for intergroup contact. However, their principles can be extended to noncontact situations. This is very important, because in real life the types of contact necessary to achieve successful intergroup contact are rare. Then, the strategies described by Gaertner and colleagues to invoke a common intergroup identity (physical proximity, cooperation on a common task) are not useful. In these cases, the ‘one group identity’ can be achieved by categorizing participants at the superordinate level, without any reference to subgroup identity.

What is an integrative model of subgroup relations?

The authors state that, based on the research on intergroup relations, it seems important to acknowledge category-based differences to achieve harmonious intergroup relations. Thus, one should not try to eliminate intergroup differences and threaten people’s need for distinct subgroup identities. Instead, one needs to nourish distinct subgroup identities, within the context of a superordinate identity. If this happens, then subgroups have a complementary relationship, rather than a competitive relationship. This is called ‘dual categorization’, and thus refers to activating the superordinate and subgroup identities simultaneously. This provides two types of benefits. First, others who are normally seen as out-group members will now be seen as ingroup members. Second, dual categorization protects the distinctiveness of the group, which seems necessary according to multiculturalists for people to be generous toward outgroup members. This dual categorization is beneficial in multi-ethnic contexts, but it can also be extended to other intergroup contexts, for example organizations. It seems that in the case of organizational mergers, it’s best to focus on a common ingroup identity, because otherwise negative relationships can emerge.

Dual categorization or identification may also be beneficial in intergroup negotiations. Why? Well, it has generally been assumed that category-based processing is a negative predicting factor for achieving successful negotiation outcomes. In this case, it seems that successful resolutions of group conflicts involve arriving at a shared superordinate definition of both groups, as well as acknowledging the subgroup level of definition.

Keep in mind that it’s not always necessary to strengthen the common superordinate identity. It can also be that it should be weakened, and this may depend on certain social realities, such as perceptions of superordinate inclusiveness and intergroup similarity.

What are social realities of subgroup relations?

Perceptions of Inclusiveness

An important factor that influences subgroup identification is how inclusive the superordinate group is perceived to be. According to Optimal distinctiveness theory, there is a dynamic tension between opposing drives for distinctiveness and inclusiveness. So, if people feel overly distinctive or unique, they will experience anxiety and feelings of discomfort. Then they will experience a drive to achieve greater inclusiveness, which can be achieved by identifying with a group or category. The other way around is also true: if a group feels over-inclusive, then this will activate a drive to achieve greater distinctiveness.

Research findings on inclusiveness

Brewer and Weber (1994) found that, in highly inclusive conditions, identification with the group weakens and the group fragments into individuals. Hornsey and Hogg (1999) found that the more inclusive the superordinate category is perceived to be, the more people strive for differentiation at the subgroup level.

Intersubgroup Similarity

Subgroup members dislike being categorized exclusively on a superordinate level, when this means that category boundaries are ignored. This would make them feel as if the superordinate category is an illegitimate way to structure the social world. Thus, subgroup members will resist being categorized entirely at the superordinate level if the subgroups are seen as essentially different.

What are nested and cross-cutting subgroups?

Nested groups mean that groups can be hierarchically nested within, or crosscut with, a superordinate category. Sometimes, the subgroups are nested entirely within the superordinate category. For example, arts and science students are nested entirely within the superordinate category of ‘university student’.

What is known about leadership?

Not surprising, groups are often directed by representatives, figureheads, or leaders. Often, subgroup members obtain their intergroup attitudes from what they hear their leaders say. According to a social identity analysis, it seems that effective leaders need to be highly ingroup prototypical. This means that when a superordinate identity is perceived as a threat to the subgroup identity, the subgroup leaders need to fight this. In these cases it is common that more extreme subgroup leaders emerge.

What about instrumental goal relations?

Often, cooperation between subgroups is beneficial for all of these groups. This means that subgroups need to work together within an overarching superordinate identity. This helps to transform a competitive intergroup orientation into an intergroup role differentiation, in which the different groups work together toward pursuing shared goals.

What about power and status differentials?

Subjective ethnolinguistic vitality refers to beliefs that people have about how well an ethnic-cultural subgroup is going to survive in a multi-ethnic setting in which there is a single dominant cultural group. This subjective vitality depends on beliefs about subgroup status (control of one’s destiny, pride in the group’s language, history, and culture), subgroup demography (absolute numbers, relative numbers, population growth and decline), and institutional support (representation in the culture and leadership of the larger society). When vitality is high, people remain highly identified with their subgroup and no not identify strongly with their superordinate group.

When a member is of a low-status subgroup, it is possible for these members to enhance their identities by self-categorizing at a superordinate level. For example, a member of a low-status university may be motivated to think of themselves as ‘a university student’. In contrast, someone from a high-status university may identify him or herself with the specific university, instead of ‘a university student’. Thus, for a low-status subgroup, the superordinate identity may be ‘additive’, while for the high-status subgroup the superordinate identity may be ‘subtractive’.

What can be concluded?

Often, social psychologists view intergroup relations in a binary way: in-group and out-group. However, in reality there are multiple groups within a superordinate identity. This article is one of the first to attempt to integrate the different streams of research and theory into one single framework of subgroup relations.

What organizations can/cannot expect from diversity recruitment, diversity training and formal mentoring programs

Around 1980 attention was paid in the literature for the first time to the business case of diversity. This business case predicts a large number of benefits of diversity for companies. The various employees can deal better with the various customers and provide a broader perspective when making decisions. In addition, it is good for the image of the company. Managers are positive about this business case, but quite a few negative outcomes with diversity are found in the literature. The literature shows that there are more conflicts and that there is more dismissal and less satisfaction among employees. The conclusion is that diversity can lead to better performance, but only if it is managed well. The diversity can be filled in in many different ways and companies often do not know what to choose. They often have no insight into the result of an intervention, so that the goals are not achieved. The problem is also that there is little research that shows the results of interventions.

What do companies want to achieve with diversity? The main reason is the threat that the government will legally record the degree of diversity within a company (if companies themselves do not do enough to promote diversity). Companies are usually pushed more towards diversity by external factors than they are attracted to by internal factors. As a result, companies usually do not evaluate their efforts fairly. If the success of diversity is already measured, this is usually a quantitative analysis. For example how many employees from minorities are employed. It is not examined whether the existing employees handle diversity well and whether the diversity also yields results. No internal structure is being developed where minorities are an added value. Dipboye indicates that companies must first develop a diversity strategy before they start recruiting people from minorities.

The recruitment of minorities

Research shows that 79% of HR professionals have developed a strategy to increase diversity within the company. The second popular measure is allowing unpaid leave for employees to take a cultural or religious holiday. First, companies must be open to minorities so that they see the company as a pleasant place to work. By promoting diversity and training, you make your company more attractive to minorities. That is why informal recruitment should not be used, because the employees then nominate people who are like them.

In this context, it is wiser to use advertisements that clearly show that you promote diversity or that you use special intermediaries that are specialized in recruiting minorities. When you show that the current employees are diverse, it is easier for minorities to join the company. This works especially well when you place a photo of a person from a minority group with the advertisement. This is in line with the social identity theory that says you are looking for people who are most like you.

In addition, it is important that the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) is communicated. In affirmative action, people are selected without the recruiter knowing which group the person comes from or that he consciously uses this knowledge. This is intended to encourage employees to be selected based on their qualities and not on their group membership.

Employees and recruiters (both black and white) are positive about identity blind recruiting. If the identity is known, but the recruiter consciously deals with this, skepticism may still exist, or it may be thought that minorities are being discriminated. Affirmative action only includes aspects such as gender and race, while EEO also includes other factors such as awareness and dealing with minorities. This is a more proactive attitude.

Goldberg discovered that a recruiter of the same race is found more attractive by the employees, but that it does not make the job more attractive. Gender and age of the recruiter make no difference.

Although there are indications that certain advertisements can attract minorities, the results are still too weak and not enough to prove that minorities actually choose a job faster when they see a "diverse" advertisement. In addition, the manipulations of diversity in the advertisements were very clear. Little attention has been paid to more subtle manipulations. Minorities themselves also vary widely, making it difficult to form a clear picture of how they will respond to various expressions of EEO. In addition, recruiting minorities is much easier than ensuring that the person from the minority group actually feels comfortable at his workplace. When the efforts of the company are exaggerated in the recruitment phase, potential employees may be disappointed when they actually come into contact with the company.

Diversity training

Diversity training is often seen as the foundation of diversity strategy. Researchers say that training is a necessary ingredient for a successful strategy. Training is used to inform employees about the diversity strategy of the company.

This is used to communicate what is required of employees in relation to minorities. In addition, training is intended to change the behavior of employees in order to promote the relationships between all employees. The skills required for this are taught. The opinions of researchers are divided on the results of these training courses. There is evidence that informing employees about diversity and promoting openness to newcomers has an effect. Another form of training is the training of skills.

It is essential that it is first investigated which skills are needed, and are still missing. This also provides insight into the motivation of employees to learn about diversity. When employees see for themselves that they have a lack of knowledge in this area, they will be motivated to participate in these training courses. Employees who do not find it necessary will not appear in voluntary training and will benefit little from involuntary training. People who are not aware of their low competence are also unaware of their lack of understanding of diversity and will therefore be less likely to participate in training.

Another form of training is the training of awareness of the existence of bias in perception, such as stereotyping. A reduction in the use of stereotypes will immediately lead to a better climate for minorities. The assumption of this intervention is that processes such as discrimination and stereotyping are largely unintentional. Researchers question the results of this training. If the training already leads to better awareness, the question remains whether it actually changes the behavior of employees. If employees change all their stereotypes, this comes from an inner motivation and not from being familiar with stereotypes.

Mentor programs

With mentoring programs, new employees walk along with an experienced employee to see the art, or new employees can go to a person for questions. The use of mentoring programs can mainly be found in professional and management positions. A goal of these programs is to develop the career and professionalization of the employee. Research shows that employees who have followed such a program are promoted faster, are more satisfied with their work, and earn more. A second goal is to prevent the employee from leaving the company soon.

A program with a formal mentor works less well than a program with an informal mentor. One reason for this may be that formal mentors have a kind of compulsory character, which means that employees are less motivated than if they are allowed to choose a mentor themselves or if a mentor arises spontaneously.

If the mentor resembles the protégé, the usefulness of the program is facilitated. Mentor programs work especially well when it changes the stereotypes of the decision maker. Those are the people who determine who gets what information and who gets promotion. Because the employee does not receive certain information, he can also perform less well. If the employee knows that there are stereotypes about him, he will also attribute failure to the negative sides of the stereotype, making it affirmative. As a result, the potential of the employee does not come into its own. Although many studies show the benefits of mentoring programs, there are also factors that increase the chance of dismissal.

The reason that many new employees resign quickly is that the job does not meet expectations. Similarly, the mentor cannot meet expectations, so that socialization does not go as it should. The problem is that people from minority groups have fewer colleagues with whom they have a relationship, because they don't look so much like them. Mentoring can also be taken up by a whole group instead of by one person. This works even better than when a new employee has one mentor. The newcomer immediately builds a network.

From the treatment of the above three methods to promote diversity, you can conclude that these three elements can work, if they meet reality.

Managers are the ones who hire and give opportunities, so it is especially important for managers that they are good at dealing with diversity.

Thomas and Ely identified three perspectives on diversity:

1. Discrimination and fairness: the company does its best to hire various employees, who must then adapt to the prevailing culture. Various employees do not get equal opportunities in this structure. Because only recruiters are engaged in promoting diversity, the various employees do not integrate into the existing, homogeneous group.
2. Access-and-legitimacy: the company hires various employees to connect with the various customers, but afterwards gives them few opportunities for growth. In this structure, the dominant group gets better opportunities.
3. Integration and learning: the company realizes that various employees have added value. This structure often leads to discussion.

Research shows that a combination of the above perspectives works best, but that companies usually start with a narrow focus and then expand. Research also shows that reducing stereotypes is one of the best ways to make diversity work, but that this has no place in the aforementioned perspectives.

The suggestion from Bendick is to provide awareness training, but there is little evidence that this works. It only works with people who want to avoid their stereotypes, but these people are often already aware of their stereotypes. Awareness training only has a lasting effect when there is a common goal of working together. When a company wants to promote the situation of minorities across the board, it makes sense to set explicit standards on how to deal with minorities.

Introduction

As the diversity among personnel has increased considerably, implementers indicate that it is important to have a diverse workforce. This contributes to competitive advantages by increasing creativity and innovation. Yet there is little scientific research that supports this. There are more studies that find the opposite. That diversity leads to negative consequences, such as more conflicts or a decrease in group cohesion.

This study will first provide an overview of the studies that have been conducted into diversity and performance. The authors attempt to bring together this inconsistency of results from previous research by presenting a conceptual multi-level model. This model wants to answer the following question: “when and how does diversity lead to positive, rather than negative, outcomes of group performance?”. In general, the authors think that there are moderators for the relationship between diversity and the multi-level model. And that the multi-level model has a mediating role in the relationship between diversity and group performance.

The model is different from previous studies because it emphasizes social psychological constructs and uses the social identity theory to answer the "when and how" questions, rather than focusing on pure cognitive constructs, such as reducing stereotypes. The model identifies psychological mechanisms at the individual and group level of the analysis. These are indicated as concept of mediators between the relationship of group composition and group performance. This allows them to explain how diversity leads to more positive outcomes.

What does it mean to be a diverse working group?

There are several definitions for diversity. The most common definition of diversity is the perceptible difference between individuals for characteristics that they can see different from each other. Examples of this assumption are given as; different characters, personality traits, personal values ​​and norms, but also other types of belief, sexual preference or mental/physical health. This first definition refers to the difference between individuals.

A different definition focuses on the group. Diversity is a mix of people with different group identities in the same social system. This definition is therefore more based on the group identity. This research focuses on the second definition.

Various groups consist of individuals who identify themselves with different subgroups. There are different ways in which people can differ from each other. Surface-level diversity are differences between group members based on biological traits and that can be seen physically. Such as age, gender, race/ethnicity. Deep-level diversity are differences between group members that are not immediately visible. Like personalities, attitudes, norms and values. However, the authors say that the separation between these two levels is not as clear as it seems and that it is very dependent on the context under which level something must be placed.

Does diversity lead to improved performance?

Research shows that a diverse group leads to an improvement in decision-making capacity through the increase in creativity and innovation. Because people with different backgrounds think differently and therefore have multiple perspectives to come to a solution. Nevertheless, studies with hard evidence for this statement are hard to find.

There are also studies that indicate that groups with differences are less attracted to their group mates, have less confidence, communicate less and feel less united, compared to groups with the same people. This therefore leads to more conflicts and misunderstandings within the group with differences.

To explain these differences, studies have been using the social identity theory and the self-categorization theory. This showed that people who are different from each other are less willing to work together than people without differences, because they do not place themselves in the same social category (in-group) and therefore they do not share the same social identity.

Social categorization has been used to investigate the negative outcomes of group performance. Social categorization involves the following; people tend to have a preference for their own group (in-group) and to dislike other groups (out-group). This could therefore counteract the cooperation in groups with differences. Yet there are also researchers who think that it is not the social categorization itself, but the prejudices of the in-group. Because of this people from a lower group would like to work together with someone from a higher group, although this is an out-group. This could explain the difference in outcomes of the studies into diversity in groups.

When does diversity lead to improved group performance?

It is important to be clear when diversity improves group performance to promote the potential benefits of a diverse workplace. Various studies have been conducted into moderators that ensure that various groups perform better. In general, it emerged that the positive effects of diversity and group contact are determined by four circumstances; equal group status within a situation, the same goals, cooperation and support of the authorities, and the law.

Research in the field of organizational behavior shows that improving group performance is influenced by; task independence, task difficulty, organization structure, collective vs. individual values, the climate of the organization and openness to diversity.

There have also been recent studies into individual differences in attitudes towards group diversity. People who are open to new experiences have a better group performance than a group that consisted of people with superior identities.

How does diversity improve group performance?

Research into team reflexivity revealed that reflexivity mediates the relationship between the interaction effect on demographic diversity and the dependence on the team outcome (if the interaction effect on demographic diversity and lifetime of satisfaction with the measures, dedication and performance of the group).

Research suggests that diversity leads to more conflicts within a group, which can have advantages or disadvantages, depending on the type of conflict. Different types of conflicts are: task conflicts, social-emotional conflicts and values ​​conflicts. It appears that more task conflicts arise with functional/informational diversity. Social-emotional conflicts are predominant in groups with demographic differences. In the case of cultural differences within a group, value conflicts are more often present. These conflicts can lead to a positive outcome, because people put forward their ideas and opinions, the team comes to a nuanced solution.

Other mechanisms also positively influence the relationship between diversity and group performance. Such as the learning behavior of the team and the confirmation of identity. Only a really clear answer to the question “how does diversity improve group performance?” stays off. With the following model, the authors try to provide an answer to this.

The conceptual model and its development

Each part of the model is explained in a separate piece. The model can be used to understand the effects of diversity. The model uses social psychological mechanisms from previous research to explain a multi-level process of learning each other's identity within a group.

Outcome variable: group performance

The most important variable in this model is the outcome variable: group performance. This concept can be applied to the performance of an entire organization or to smaller groups. Work performance is defined as the total expected value for an organization, through the behavior of an individual, within a standard time period. This definition is aimed at the individual and therefore includes the contribution of each individual member of a group. These individual performances together is the performance of the group.

Another study explained work performance by in-role behavior (IRB) and extra-role behavior (ERB). IRB contains of the behavior that ensures that the tasks are performed. ERB refers to contextual behavior that contributes to the overall effectiveness of the group through the effect on psychological and social characteristics of work. The proposed model involves both IRB and ERB.

Multi-level mechanisms; explain how diversity improves group performance

According to some researchers, explaining this process goes through the learning process. This is very difficult because a learning process consists of several underlying, independent mechanisms. However, some researchers have tried this and described it as activities in which team members try to gain, share, improve or combine task relevant knowledge by interacting with each other. This behavior is specifically aimed at performing their duties, not at getting to know each other better.

In this paper they go beyond what has already been investigated. The learning behavior of a team is seen as knowledge of each other's identities and obtaining the necessary knowledge that is necessary for a heterogeneous group to function effectively. Learning each other's identities is accompanied by a number of psychological mechanisms: embed the identities of the others in your own identity, respect the correspondence of someone's personal and social identity and respect each other's identity.

Two levels are needed to analyze this, at individual level and at group level. On an individual level, empathy and self-disclosure are considered. At group level, the greatest focus is on communication, involvement with the group and trust in the group. This study does not want to say that all of these variables must be present to a certain extent to ensure that diversity improves group performance. The activation of a variable can be enough to improve performance.

Empathy

Empathy is seen as an individual process in which people identify with others and show understanding for someone's situation, feelings and motives. This can be very important to learn things from each other, to incorporate each other's identities and as a result there can be more understanding, tolerance and cooperation with each other. Empathy ensures that people are more willing to help each other, which can contribute to the creation of a team (self-other merger). This can occur in the following situations: if someone else's prosperity promotes your own prosperity, if you and the other are connected by parable, and if you and the other share the same relationship in a social category or group.

According to the social identity theory and the self-categorization theory, people in a different groups are more likely to separate themselves from the whole and therefore there is less empathy. Yet people must be able to have empathy for people who differ from themselves according to the theory of empathy. Empathy is present in every person, regardless of the relationship with others.

Some studies show that empathy is important for the proper functioning of groups with diversity. It causes the stereotypes to decrease, because there is more understanding for the other and improves the representation of someone. This leads to social behavior.

Empathy will mediate in the relationship between diversity and group performance.

Self-disclosure

Advantages can arise if people are willing to give themselves up by sharing information about themselves with others. If this occurs within a group with many differences, the part-level diversity changes to surface-level diversity. Because the atmosphere is very open, this improves the functioning of the individual.

By exposing someone's identity, group members understand each other better, which in turn ensures better performance. That is why self-disclosure is an important psychological mechanism that better develops interpersonal relationships. Which is especially important for groups with diversity, because there is already a standard sense of distrust.

Self-disclosure mediates in the relationship between diversity and group performance.

Communication

Studies show that much communication in a heterogeneous group can lead to conflicts. Avoiding different opinions and having open communication leads to fewer conflicts, but it does reduce the performance of employees.

It is suggested not to look at the amount of conflicts, but to analyze the reason for the conflicts and how they are resolved. To investigate this, research does not look at the frequency of communication, but at reflexibility. This shows that it is not bad to have conflicts, but how they are handled and how the group generally communicates.

The quality of communication within a group mediates in the relationship between diversity and group performance.

Commitment to the group

Commitment to the group is the extent to which an individual is involved in the execution of tasks, such as the exchange of information, joint decisions and the extent to which he feels respected. Commitment to the group is seen as the perception of inclusion and exclusion with regard to employee interaction or involvement within work teams. Research shows that visible differences within a team cause a negative relationship with involvement within the group.

Commitment to the group mediates in the relationship between diversity and group performance.

Group confidence

Research shows that people who belong to different social categories or people who see themselves differently from others feel much more anxious compared to people who don't. This can cause them to think paranoid, which makes them unreliable for others. Distrust spreads within the group, leading to "collective paranoia". This means that diversity leads to a poorer group performance.

Trust mediates in the relationship between diversity and group performance.

Explanation of when diversity improves group performance

The model focuses on two psychological conditions, for which not much research has been done before. Yet these conditions, which activate the psychological mechanisms, are essential to explain when diversity can lead to better group performance. The two conditions are: the importance of a collective identity and a safe psychological climate. They are both seen group level variables that interact with each other. In general, this model suggests that the importance of a collective identity and a safe psychological climate is the relationship between diversity and the multi-level psychological mechanisms. And that these mechanisms mediate the relationship between diversity and group performance.

The importance of a collective identity

It is important to reduce the importance of in-group - out-group within a group. Research has shown that this has negative consequences for diversity in the group. Groups must ensure that they place both themselves and others in the same category, which in turn has positive consequences for diversity in a group. Organizations that focus more on the development of groups, rather than individuals, will therefore experience more benefits with diversity within a group. The importance of a collective identity moderates the relationship between diversity and group performance.

Someone with a personal identity asks the question: “who am I as a unique individual?” while someone with a collective identity wonders himself: “who are we as a group?”. The difference between a social identity and a collective identity is in the focus on the group. A social identity is focused on itself within a social group, a collective identity is only focused on group-level variables. The social identity theory and the self-categorization theory also indicate that the negative effects of diversity within a group are reduced if there is a collective identity within that group.

The effects of group composition on psychological processes (at individual and group level) are moderated by the importance of a collective identity.

A safe psychological climate

According to the social identity theory and the self-categorization theory, different people are more willing to cooperate if the team identification is high than when it is low. Only if the group identification becomes too strong do people with a different opinion want to stay in line with the rest of the group and therefore tend not to give their opinion.

Therefore, group identification cannot indicate positive or negative effects of diversity. Because a certain degree of identification is important, a safe psychological climate cannot be missing. A safe psychological climate is defined as shared beliefs among the members of a group, as a result of mutual respect and trust. Some researchers say that pro-diversity beliefs are also essential for a safe climate. This means that different perspectives in a group are expected to be an advantage for solving a task. Research also shows that when employees consider their environment as safe enough for interpersonal risks, they are more likely to show who they are. Which leads to positive psychological processes, such as empathy, communication and trust. These processes are necessary elements for diversity to improve group performance.

It is also important to say that the interaction between the importance of a collective identity and a safe psychological climate (to a lesser extent) can also be found in homogeneous groups. A three-way interaction effect could therefore be found in an organization between group composition, group identification and a safe psychological climate. Research still needs to be done.

The effects of group composition on psychological processes (individual and group level) are moderated by a safe psychological climate.

Discussion and conclusion

The suggested model contributes to the understanding of the effects of diversity on group performance. It is different from other attempts to understand the effects of diversity because social psychological constructs and identity perspectives are included. The "when" and "how" questions for managers can be answered, instead of other studies that focus on cognitive constructs. The importance of a collective identity and a safe psychological climate are included in the model to determine the conditions under which diversity improves group performance. The model thus provides a comprehensive explanation of how diversity leads to group performance by looking at mechanisms at the individual and group level that underlie the learning of each other's identity within a group.

Until now, research has only looked at the conditions needed to create a diverse workplace and the underlying psychological mechanisms that explain how diversity can lead to better group performance. Most of the studies focused on describing a good climate for diversity, developing a mindset about diversity, and then studying it or testing the direct effects of diversity. The model from this study brings a new psychological perspective and shows the process how people can learn from each other's identity within a group. The model tests the influence of diversity on performance through a behavioral perspective, by seeing group performance as a meeting of the behavior of all group members.

In summary, the authors believe that this model contributes to explaining and predicting good results through diversity and provides a constructive framework for further research. This further research is theoretical, but is necessary for practical knowledge. So that the model or parts of it can be tested. It is important to state that the model should apply to all possible aspects of diversity, but it is also possible that some aspects are more important than others at certain stages of group work. This is interesting for theoretical and empirical testing with longitudinal research.

Group inclusion in the workplace is still under development and there is not yet an agreement on the construct. Previous research mainly focused on the problems with diversity including affirmative actions, tokenism and discrimination bias. Shore et al. (2011) use Brewer’s optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT) to define this construct of employee inclusion and the influence it has on satisfaction and the needs of uniqueness and belongingness in the workplace. This framework can be used for further research and reviewing inclusion and diversion in the workplace.

What is the optimal distinctiveness theory?

Identification with in-groups and out-groups is defines as the identification with social categories and the group. People become attached trough a common connection to the group. Identity contains a social component that involves defining oneself as being an individual. Brewer (1991) argues that people seek balance between uniqueness and individuation. People that choose social identities based upon a group seek acceptance in this group. When an individual feels accepted, this has many advantages.

• People display in-group favouritism, they attribute positive group behaviour to the group and themselves and negative group behaviour to others.

• The trustworthiness, cooperation and loyalty among group members increases;

If group members feel they are too similar, they start seeking distinctiveness. Group members start to define themselves in terms of differentiating characteristics. People tend to socially identify with a group if both the needs for uniqueness and inclusiveness are met. ODT studies show what happens when these needs are at jeopardy. To restore balance, people engage in self-stereotyping, place greater value on social identity and display intergroup differentiation.

What are the roles of belongingness and uniqueness in defining inclusion?

Inclusion is defined as the degree to which an employee feels to be an established member of a group. It includes whether the group treatment and outcomes satisfy the need for uniqueness and belongingness. The inclusion framework proposes uniqueness and belongingness create feelings of inclusion. When a unique individual is an accepted member of the group and the group values the characteristic of uniqueness. A higher value of inclusion can benefit job performance. Work groups with high inclusion values can facilitate collaboration across the organization, demonstrate good analysis and are able to enhance their skills. Exclusion is when a person does not have the feeling to be an organizational insider with a unique value in the work group. The outcomes can be harmful on emotional, cognitive and health level. The proposed inclusion-framework includes four definitions:

1. Exclusion: when an individual is not treated as an insider in the organization containing a unique quality, while others are treated that way.

2. Differentiation: when a person is not treated as an insider, but the organizational and unique quality he or she possesses is seen as a valuable characteristic for organizational success.

3. Assimilation: an individual is treated as an insider, but they need to conform to the dominant/organizational culture that downplays their uniqueness.

4. Inclusion: the individual feels like an insider and is encouraged to maintain the uniqueness within the group.

How is inclusion defined in existing literature?

According to Pelled, Ledford and Mohrman (1999) inclusion is defined as the degree to which an individual is treated and accepted as an insider by other members of the group. Inclusion is the removal of obstacles that stand in the way of full participation in organizations. Miller (1998) described inclusion as the extend to which a diverse person can participate and contribute fully in an organization. Williams, Haugen and Kossek (2008) described inclusion as the feeling of belonging and engage in inclusive behaviours such as valuing contributions from daily life in the organization. A multicultural or inclusive organization is described as an organization that brings members of different groups together and the members also shape the organizational strategy, work, operating systems and management. According to the definitions in existing literature there are two general themes that are consistent with ODT.

1. Belongingness described as acceptance or insiderness is apparent in all definitions.

2. Uniqueness is described in all definitions, for example the appreciation of individual talents or the ability of all employees to contribute fully.

There is a connection between uniqueness and the feeling of acceptance. Stigma’s are characteristics, attributes or experiences that convey an identity that is not valued in certain social settings. People are requested to keep these characteristics hidden, which causes several psychological issues. The model of work group inclusion proposed by Shore at al. (2011) is consistent with three values described in existing literature on inclusiveness:

1. The optimal distinctiveness model (ODT) focuses on the satisfaction of uniqueness needs.

2. There is emphasis in existing literature that individuals should be valued for their unique perspectives.

3. Literature on stigma’s revealed that some characteristics are hidden by individuals to avoid rejection by the group when this unique trait is stigmatized in certain social contexts.

According to Pelled et al. (1999) there are three indicators of inclusion. The first is decision-making influence, second is access to sensitive work information and third is job security. Dissimilarity between race and gender were negatively related to these indicators, whereas similarity in education was positively related. Stamper and Masterson (2002) investigated perceived insider status and found that is was positively related to altruism. Two conclusions can be drawn based upon inclusion literature. The first is that practices associated with insider status can enhance the employees’ perception of inclusion. Second, there are positive consequences of inclusion for work performance and satisfaction.

What is the difference between this inclusion framework and other diversity theories and models?

The distinguishing characteristic of the framework proposed by Shore et al. (2011) is the emphasis on both the feeling of uniqueness and belongingness. Other diversity theories separate these constructs and focus more on one of the other. One example is that people seek to belong to groups that treat in-group members more favourable than out-group members (Byrne, 1971). They focus on demographic factors as predictors of belongingness. However, demographic similarity does not predict the feeling of belongingness to a group (Mannix & Neale, 2005). Many theories emphasize the importance of similarity without acknowledging the need for uniqueness. The emphasis on both belongingness and uniqueness makes this framework a better predictor for inclusion.

What insights should be applied in future research?

The construct of inclusion needs to be fully defined and theory and practice should be enhanced. Shore et al (2011) propose several factors that should be included in future research.

• Contextual factors that contribute to inclusion should be considered. These factors include an inclusive climate, inclusive leadership and inclusive practices.

• Resulting outcomes of inclusion should be considered. There is empirical evidence of the association between inclusion and job satisfaction, but there could be more related factors. One example is that inclusion could predict the intention to leave the company. Interpersonal models can be used to analyse resulting outcomes. For example, the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) can provide a basis for predicting inclusion based on the quality of social exchange relationships.

• The influence of creativity should be considered. Creative individuals often have a great degree of uniqueness. It would be interesting to know how belongingness can enhance uniqueness in (creative) individuals.

What do the researchers conclude?

Success in work is often related to diversity characteristics. For example, Hersch (2008) found that immigrants with the lightest skin colour earned seventeen percent more than other immigrants. This raised interest in the value-in-diversity perspective. Shore et al. (2011) believe that their inclusion framework provides more insight in the feeling of inclusion in the workplace and the connection between the feeling of both uniqueness and belongingness. Only emphasising uniqueness leads to stereotypes and overemphasizing belongingness leads to suppression of background and unique qualities. The focus of inclusion in the workplace should be on maintaining feelings of belongingness and uniqueness at the same time.

BulletPoints

• Identification with in-groups and out-groups is defines as the identification with social categories and the group. People become attached trough a common connection to the group. Identity contains a social component that involves defining oneself as being an individual. Brewer (1991) argues that people seek balance between uniqueness and individuation. People that choose social identities based upon a group seek acceptance in this group.

• A multicultural or inclusive organization is described as an organization that brings members of different groups together and the members also shape the organizational strategy, work, operating systems and management.

ExamTickets

• You should know the optimal distinctiveness theory and its influence on research in inclusiveness.

• The authors argue they propose a new framework compared to existing literature. What is the main difference between the proposed framework and the existing literature on inclusion and diversity in work groups?

Diversity initiatives in the workplace

Diversity initiatives are starting to become an accepted part of the business world in the United States and in other countries. Nevertheless, there are still many problems within organizations in the field of diversity. An example of this is that women and minorities often have the feeling that there is a glass ceiling in their company. A promotion is not far away, but a thin glass ceiling prevents them from doing so. The glass ceiling can, for example, be a prejudice against women, so that women end up in less senior positions. If companies do not combat diversity problems, this can have adverse consequences: they can lead to lower production, conflicts, lawsuits and the wasting of valuable talent.

Women are more often dissatisfied with their job and are more likely to leave than men. The reasons for this are the lack of career opportunities for, for example, promotion and dissatisfaction with their progress.

It is often argued that women and minorities are collectivists, and therefore more group oriented than white men in their attitudes towards work and interpersonal relationships. The result is that women and minorities bring more interpersonal skills to the workplace, which can have a positive effect on the productivity and effectiveness of an organization.

Management diversity and valuing diversity

Managing diversity and valuing diversity are approaches that enhance diversity in the workplace. Management diversity has to do with the changing structure and functioning of organizations by an increasing number of women, minorities and other groups. This can be introduced at all levels of organizations in the workplace. Changes are made by diversity initiatives in the field of business policies and procedures by promoting fairness and equality. Attempts to manage diversity affect employee recruitment, promotion, reward systems and benefits, and conflict and dispute handling procedures. It seems that there are many advantages to integrating diversity. Examples are improved productivity, better interpersonal skills and mutual relationships at work and an increased capacity to function in various markets. Managing diversity also includes providing sanctions for discriminatory behavior.

The valuation of diversity relates to the changing attitudes, feelings and behavior of individual managers and employees in order to increase awareness and sensitivity to diversity problems. Attempts to greater appreciation of diversity take the form of creating mentoring programs, conflict resolution training and diversity training. Diversity training programs are designed to raise awareness of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and sexual differences and to help people with their skills to use this knowledge in practice. Videos, lectures, discussions, role plays, simulations and other experimental techniques are usually used.

In practice, managing and valuing diversity are often combined in organizations, and they are presented in many different ways. People often do not want to participate in diversity training when it is mandatory, but most exercises are interpersonal and do not really give the impression that they are mandatory. Research into diversity training is only just being used. The few studies that have been done about it indicate that they can be very successful in changing attitudes and behaviors, but often do not use their full potential.

If attempts to manage diversity are successful, it is probably due to the normative culture of the organization. An organization tries to promote a culture. This way it can promote changes in subjective norms and attitudes. These changes should ensure equivalent behavior.

Managing diversity can also bring dissonance. Changed behavior based on dissonance is more effective when the behavioral changes occur voluntarily. Dissonance-based behavioral changes are most common on the basis of a democratic workplace. Valuing diversity can influence attitudes and behavior by changing people's tendency to continuously conform to authorities. Valuing diversity can also include factors that regulate intergroup behavior. Diversity training programs provide knowledge about other groups, which can ensure that prejudices and stereotypes are less frequent. It can help to create insights that lead to people regulating their intergroup behavior.

Diversity training programs must address a few problems. Organizations can sometimes be negative about changes in procedures and employees sometimes have negative attitudes and behaviors that are dragged into it and that are very difficult to change. Some organizations have emphasized too much that the training courses are for white men and not for minorities and women. This allows these white men to feel attacked and afraid that they will be kicked out of the company. Good diversity training emphasizes the training of white men as well as that of minorities and women. For carrying out diversity training programs, it is useful for the trainers to conduct a cultural audit to determine the needs of the organization.

Diversity trainers themselves must also be well trained, because giving diversity training can be very complex. Diversity trainers must determine how much they will tackle and how they will distribute the training. For example, legality problems or social skills training. Trainers have to decide how much the training will include, how they will approach the culture of an organization and to what level they want to change it. It is suggested that diversity programs should last longer. It might also be better if diversity programs were part of a larger plan to learn to value and manage diversity. Diversity trainers should also be encouraged to evaluate their programs. Often the programs are not evaluated because it takes time and money, and it reduces the time that employees could work on the company. Another reason that the diversity programs are not evaluated may be that the researchers are afraid of the results and that they must start again.

Some diversity training programs are primarily theoretical in nature and others are a pragmatic selection of techniques. An example of a theory-based program is the multicultural diversity-competence approach. This approach has its origins in anthropology, based on the idea that culture is at the basis of all group differences. An example of a pragmatic selection of techniques is a short training program developed by the National Multicultural Institute. The program is designed to give participants an insight into their personal cultural perspectives, to increase their cultural identity, to make clear that many problems are caused by cultural differences and to learn the skills that participants can use in the workplace.

Effects of diversity initiatives

There have not been many studies into the effects of diversity initiatives, because the concept of diversity initiatives is still relatively young. The results of the few studies that have been done show that:

• The training needs time to be effective, but the effects disappear after a long period.
• Training on awareness has little or no effect on men, but does have a positive effect on women.
• People think diversity management is more important than before the training.
• Compulsory programs are often more effective than voluntary programs, despite the fact that people are less willing to cooperate. This is because people with a high appreciation for diversity often participate in voluntary programs, but with them it is actually no longer necessary. People who are obliged to participate often have negative feelings about diversity, but no more or at least a lot less after training.

If everyone in a certain group has the same social identity (for example, everyone is a man) and one person is not (a person is a woman), then this person has a solo status. This makes this solo person more visible in the group, because she stands out more. Moreover, it causes more pressure on performance, which can manifest itself in stress. The personal response to stress can be predicted by cognitive values ​​(or valuation, for example, fight or flight). In this article, two experiments are discussed that look at whether cognitive values ​​moderate the effect of a solo status on performance.

• Experiment 1 found that high appraisal values ​​cause solo status to increase performance and low values ​​to decrease performance.
• Experiment 2 found this effect based on minimal group tasks.

In short, for people who feel challenged and not threatened, a solo status can contribute to a better performance.

Preface

Sometimes a solo status ensures better performance, sometimes worse. This was investigated various studies. One or more moderators must explain this difference. Group moderators are already known: group status and group stereotypes. However, the moderators are not yet known at the individual level. People with a solo status stand out, have higher performance pressure and social isolation and feel that others will stereotype them. On an individual level, the way a person deals with that stress (cognitive appraisal) could be a moderator. With cognitive appraisal, someone can appreciate a situation and see if it is possible to keep it under control. Positive evaluation makes it possible higher performance and negative evaluation for poorer performance, which is why cognitive appraisal predicts the effect of solo status, high appraisal predicts better performance and lower appraisal predicts poorer performance.

Solo status: abnormal performance

Different processes are taking place at the majority and minority groups. Firstly, people in the minority groups are clearly visible, which can lead to higher performance pressure. Secondly, there is increased polarization (strengthening of opposites) between the minority and minority groups and this can lead to social isolation of the minority group. Thirdly, members of the minority group are characterized by a certain stereotype by the majority group. People with a solo status experience the same group pressure as tokens (people who have been assigned a higher rank precisely because they are in the minority).

A solo status can cause a poorer performance, it can contribute to the threat of stereotyping and it influences leadership in a group. Research showed that when a task seemed 'female', women with a solo status did not start to perform worse, but male solos did. This effect was also found the other way around. There are several group-level variables that can moderate the effect of solo status on individual performance: gender, group stereotypes, and group status.

Cognitive appraisal on emotion

When one is more certain of his or her ability to perform, one experiences less stress during a task. To be able to predict how someone will deal with the stress, you can look at the cognitive appraisal of emotion. This consists of primary and secondary appraisal: primary appraisal is the allocation of possible implications for a person himself: do I have a problem? This is done if there are possible negative implications. Secondary appraisal is the appraisal of if you can possibly solve the problem. Two constructs are related to cognitive appraisal: self-determination (the belief that you can produce specific actions to cope with a stressful situation)  and expectations about performance (how will I do it?) Two experiments have been designed to test the hypothesis that cognitive appraisal moderates the effect that solo status has on performance. It was thought that solos would perform better when the cognitive appraisal is high than when it is low.

Experiment 1

This experiment looks at whether cognitive appraisal would moderate the effect of solo gender status on performance. Participants had to do two tasks. There was a group discussion task and a difficult math task. It was thought that solos would feel higher levels of emotional arousal than non-solos. They also thought to find a solo status versus cognitive appraisal interaction: solos perform better when the cognitive appraisal is high than when it is low. This relationship would be stronger for solos than non-solos.

Method

137 participants participated. Groups consisted of 1 man and 3 women or 1 woman and 3 men. One had to do an emotion task to see how much arousal someone had. Then they did a group discussion task and a math task. Then the cognitive appraisal was investigated, both primary and secondary. They then answered various questions about, for example, peer pressure and stereotyping.

Results

Solos no longer felt visible or evaluated. Solos did not report higher levels of emotional arousal. Cognitive appraisal as variable: women had significantly lower appraisal (confidence in solving) in the math task and the group decision task. However, there was no significant effect of solo status on the appraisal. So it didn't matter if you were solo or not when it comes to trusting in solving a task. The solo status versus gender interaction was also not significant. And there was no difference between solos and non-solos.

Cognitive appraisal as a moderator: cognitive appraisal significantly predicted math scores. It predicted both for solos and non-solos, but significantly more for solos. A significant solo status versus cognitive appraisal interaction was found.

Discussion

Experiment 1 found that cognitive appraisal moderates the effect of solo status on performance. However, solos did not say that they felt raised arousal. They were aware of their solo status. They also thought they were stereotyped.

Experiment 2

Experiment 2 was designed to support the first experiment and to ensure that the independent variables on solo status and cognitive appraisal were uncorrelated. Cognitive appraisal was first measured and then participants were randomly assigned. They didn't get a privacy screen, which they did get in the first experiment. The group task from experiment 1 was not included, there was only a math task. Moreover, it contained several measurements to measure appraisal, instead of 1. The same hypotheses were used as in experiment 1.

Method

91 people participated. There were 21 groups of 3 people and 7 groups of 4 people.

Procedure

A few tasks had to be done and the cognitive appraisal was measured before there was a slight emphasis on the status of a person. This is different from experiment 1. The test subjects did a math task and the rest of the tasks (such as the questionnaires) that they did in experiment 1.

Results

With cognitive appraisal as a variable: there were no significant effects of gender or solo status and there was also no solo versus gender interaction. Solos indicated that they no longer feel visible, nor feel a higher pressure to perform, nor feel stereotyped. No effect was found in terms of emotion.

For cognitive appraisal as a moderator: just as in experiment 1, cognitive appraisal significantly predicts the math score. There was a solo status versus cognitive appraisal interaction. Just as in the first experiment, the women scored lower than the men.

Discussion

Experiment 2 supports the results of experiment 1. Solos with high levels of appraisal score higher than solos with low levels of appraisal. This effect was stronger for solos than for non-solos. The difference with the first experiment was that the appraisal was tested by making the math test in the group context and the solo status was introduced afterwards for some participants. In this way one ensures that the possibility that the effect was observed, because the solo status makes people more accurate and extreme in their appraisal, was excluded. For example, it was ensured that this effect is uncorrelated with the reported cognitive appraisal.

General discussion

Two experiments found support for the hypothesis that the cognitive appraisal of emotion moderates the effect on solo status on a personal performance. This effect is stronger and more positive for solos than non-solos. This may explain why solo status leads to better performance in some people and to poorer performance in others. There were no differences in the effect that solo status has on men and women.