Page 110 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

THOMAS AND CHROBOT-MASON
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rigidification occurs to protect one's self and one's group, and it is dur­
ing this stage that communication shuts down and the group is construed
as an evil other. In stage four, collusion, maintaining the conflict becomes
more important than resolving the conflict, because the conflict itself has
now become a part of the group's identity. Northrup (1989) noted that each
stage contributes to the creation of the next stage, and as the conflict moves
from one stage to the next, deescalation becomes less and less likely.
This cycle of miscommunication and misattribution may help to ex­
plain why discrimination and bias continue to create problems in orga­
nizations. Devine, Evett, and Vasquez-Suson (1996) suggested that indi­
viduals who lack experience with dissimilar others may be considered
intergroup-unskilled and may experience high anxiety during intergroup
interactions. Their anxiety is manifested in avoidant nonverbal behaviors
(such as lack of eye contact in an interview situation), which is likely in­
terpreted by the minority member not as anxiety, but rather as prejudice.
In response then, the minority member is likely to withdraw or respond
with hostility, which in turn may be perceived by the majority member not
as a response to prejudice, but rather prejudice toward the majority. Thus,
this cycle of misattribution can result in confirmed expectations and in­
creased intergroup anxiety that consequently influences future intergroup
interactions. Furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that inter­
group anxiety and the suppression of stereotypes can be quite taxing and
requires a significant amount of cognitive capacity that may impair per­
formance on other cognitively complex tasks (Richeson & Shelton, 2003).
Thus, organizational members who are prejudiced or lack experience with
dissimilar others and who find themselves in a diverse workplace may
experience cognitive overload as they attempt to monitor their behavior
and simultaneously engage in complex work tasks.
Future research in this area will likely focus on trying to better under­
stand complex intra- and intergroup dynamics that involve multiple social
identities and how and when various identities become salient within the
work context. We still know very little about what kinds of organizational
rhetoric, policies, or practices serve as triggers for the eruption of social
identity-based conflicts and perhaps more importantly about what orga­
nizations and leaders may do to prevent, mitigate, and resolve such types
of conflict.

AVOIDING GROUP-BASED DISCRIMINATION IN ORGANIZATIONS

There is a natural tendency to notice individual differences such as race and
gender. Furthermore, acknowledgment of these differences often causes
employees and those outside of organizations as well to divide humanity