Page 109 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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4. GROUP-LEVEL EXPLANATIONS
presented a model of intergroup anxiety in which they argue that prior re­
lations between groups and preconceived expectations of outgroup mem­
bers can influence anxiety toward intergroup interactions, which in turn
may have a negative impact on interaction between group members. For
example, when contact between groups has been minimal or prior rela­
tions have been characterized by conflict, then intergroup anxiety will be
high. When intergroup anxiety is high, normative response patterns will be
amplified. A dominant response to many forms of anxiety is avoidance or
suspicion. Another common reaction to anxiety may be to exaggerate be­
havioral norms such as politeness or interest in the individual to the point
that it is perceived as ingenuine or condescending. Still another conse­
quence of high intergroup anxiety involves information processing biases.
Anxious individuals are more likely to attend to information that confirms
existing stereotypes rather than information that disconfirms stereotypes
(Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). Intergroup anxiety may explain research that has
shown that White interviewers spent less time with, demonstrated greater
interpersonal distance from, and exhibited less eye contact with Black ap­
plicants than with White applicants (Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974) and
that African Americans received less feedback about their performance
because managers felt uncomfortable providing corrective feedback to mi­
nority members (Blank & Slipp, 1994).
Intergroup anxiety can thus negatively influence both current and fu­
ture intergroup interactions. Biased information processing, such as attend­
ing to stereotype confirming information, can serve to escalate intergroup
conflict as people attribute negative attributions and motives to the other
person or group. Pettigrew (1979) referred to the "ultimate attribution er­
ror" as a common phenomena in which people explain the actions of their
own group as a response to situational or external demands, but view the
actions of enemies as internally based and therefore "evil." For example,
researchers have shown that Americans view military actions of their own
nation as morally correct and necessary, but view similar military actions
performed by other nations as aggressive and diabolically evil (Oskamp,
1965; Sande, Goethals, Ferrari, & Worth, 1989). As the image of the group as
an evil other strengthens, the cycle of conflict progresses. Northrup (1989)
defined three stages that tend to characterize identity-based, intractable
conflicts. In the first stage of conflict, labeled as threat, an event occurs in
which one or more parties perceive the situation as invalidating its core
sense of identity and thus experiences significant threat. The second stage,
distortion, is characterized by the groups' attempt to deal with the threat
of invalidation by distorting or misperceiving incoming information to
maintain the core sense of identity. In stage three, rigidification, threatened
groups develop increasingly rigid interpretations of the world and seek to
separate ingroup and outgroup members. Northrup (1989) suggested that