Lecture 8
Work and organizational psychology
Fairness, justice and diversity in the workplace
Justice = refers to the degree to which people feel like they are treated fairly
Diversity = differences in demographic characteristics, values, abilities, interests and
experiences
-readily detectable attributes: age, sex, race
-underlying attributes: religion, expertise, attitudes
Justice and fairness diversity
-distributive justice -dynamics of diversity
-procedural justice -managing diversity
-interactional justice
Distributive justice
Type of justice in which the allocation of outcomes/rewards is perceived of fair
-merit or equity norm: eg how much money you deserve for the work you deliver
-need norm: eg how high your needs are compared to others
-equality norm: eg equal pay for men and woman independent on work delivered
Procedural justice
Type of justice in which the process (or procedure) by which ratings are assigned or rewards
are distributed is perceived as fair
-organizations can increase this by: giving employees a voice, good communication, empathy
Important for performance evaluations
Good performance evaluation/ no selection discrimination when:
-supervisor was familiar with duties and responsibilities of the subordinate
-supervisor observed the subordinate at work
-supervisor provided feedback
Interactional justice
Type of justice concerned with the sensitivity with which employees are treated
Examples:
-insensitive lay-off announcements
-abusive behavior of leaders
-co-workers putting each other down
Dynamics of diversity
Tendency for work groups to seek homogeneity rather than diversity, why?
-others don’t agree with their vison
, -differences in vison are result of difference in values
-difference in vison lead to disagreements
-difference in expertise lead to disagreement about methods
Group heterogeneity often enhances creative efforts by widening approaches to
problem solving
Although culturally homogeneous work groups initially perform at higher levels,
heterogeneous work groups become more effective over time
Managing diversity
-ineffective models for diversity -ideal diversity model
--assimilation model: minority groups --value model: acknowledge benefit diff
--protection model:
How to manage diversity
-recruit specifically with diversity in mind
-ensure career development is available for every member of the organization
-provide diversity training
-seek input from diverse group members
-provide support and networks for diverse group members
-develop connections to cultural groups in the community
Glass-cliff phenomenon = the glass-cliff effect describes a real-world phenomenon in which
women are more likely to be appointed to precarious leadership positions in poorly
performing organizations, while men are more likely to be appointed to stable leadership
positions in successful organizations (Ryan & Haslam, 2005)
-gender stereotype of think crisis think female
-signal a change: communicating new approach compared to previous male leader
-when high prejudice: setting women up for failure
Role congruity theory = proposed that prejudice towards female leaders follows from
incongruity between characteristics of woman and requirements for leader roles
-descriptive stereotypes: what we expect and think woman/ leaders are like
-prescriptive stereotypes: what we think woman/leaders should be like
Categorization in resume screening
-judge candidates not just on individual characteristics but also on group membership, which
is stereotyping
-specific focus on intersectionality: people who belong to multiple stigmatized groups
The ethnic prominence hypothesis = ethnicity as the predominantly influential factor
of discrimination, because of the greater salience and greater conflict and threat
associated with ethnicity compared to other stigmatized characters
-supported
Multiple minority status hypothesis = other characteristics have additive or
moderating effects on discrimination