Page 14 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

PREFACE
xvi
any one chapter to the authors of another chapter. Although we did not poll
the contributors, we suspect that there are points of agreement. For one, we
probably agree that the inequality among various groups in our society is
a problem that deserves the attention of industrial and organizational psy­
chologists. We also probably agree that discrimination can be rigorously
researched just as other topics in I/O psychology are researched and that
the research should be held to the same standards as any other area. We
probably agree that there are weaknesses in the previous work, as can be
expected of any relatively new area of research. Finally, we also probably
agree that we have learned much from the research that can contribute to
our understanding and application and that workplace discrimination is
a promising area for future research.
We owe thanks to many people who have assisted in various ways dur­
ing the planning and writing of the book. First, we thank Neil Schmitt and
Bob Pritchard, who were the chairs of the Frontiers Committee of the So­
ciety for Industrial and Organizational Psychology during its preparation.
We thank Dean Robert Stein of the School of Social Sciences at Rice Uni­
versity, whose generous support of the discrimination conference at Rice
in 2000 brought together what turned out to be the core contributors to this
volume. We appreciate the assistance of our graduate student and clerical
assistants and the social support of our spouses. To the extent that this
book is well received, they deserve more than a small share of the credit.

—Robert L. Dipboye
University of Central Florida
—Adrienne Colella
Texas A&M University