Page 264 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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10. WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION
takes place, it is just usually to the supervisor. Thus, there is no centralized
knowledge of who has a disability, which makes it difficult to locate respon­
dents. Second, as any discrimination researcher knows, it is often difficult
to get past the legal department when conducting this type of research.
However, researchers need to overcome these difficulties.
Our review indicated that all seven studies conducted in field settings
(Bowman, 1987; Colella & Varma, 2001 (study 1); Farina, Felner, &
Boudreau, 1973; Johnson & Heal, 1976; Millington, Szymanski, & Hanley-
Maxwell, 1994; Ravaud, Madiot, & Ville, 1992; and Schloss & Soda, 1989)
found negative discriminatory effects on at least some dependent mea­
sures. When results were mixed, there was either no effect or a negative
effect. In other words, positive effects (i.e., evaluations that are overly pos­
itive for applicants or employees with disabilities) were only found in the
lab.
Researchers using student respondents often justify this choice by cit­
ing research that shows that students do not vary in their attitudes toward
people with disabilities compared to managers. This may indeed be the
case, however, we suggest that this is not the problem. Rather the prob­
lem lies in conducting research in a context where there are no personal
consequences to respondents.
Many have argued (see Stone et al., 1992 with respect to disabilities) that
social desirability effects rule out the expression of negative bias when the
interaction situation is of little consequence to respondents. Indeed, several
studies have demonstrated that when the situation matters to respondents
(Colella, DeNisi, & Varma, 1998; Gibbons, Stephan, Stephanson, & Petty,
1980; Piner & Kahle, 1984; Stone & Michaels, 1993,1994), subjects are much
more likely to discriminate against people with disabilities. Colella et al.
(1998) used social adaptation theory (Piner & Kahle, 1984) to explain this
effect.
The point is that we need to stop conducting the modal disability dis­
crimination study whereby respondents react to a paper person or a video­
tape in a situation that is of no personal consequence and conduct research
in settings where the interaction is of real consequence to respondents. This
means that laboratory research needs to be more carefully designed, and re­
search in the field needs to be conducted. There are many ways to make the
situation of consequence to respondents such as interdependence of tasks,
competition for a valued reward, or real-life, real-time work relationships
(or the anticipation of such).
Generalizing Across Disabilities It is safe to conclude that people do not
respond to all disabilities in the same manner. Indeed there is a line of
research which illustrates that there is a hierarchy of disabilities in terms
of how negatively nondisabled people respond to them (e.g., Bowman,