Page 293 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases
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STONE-ROMERO
supervisor and others might be strained. As a result, the incumbent might
avoid contact with others and might manifest anxiety in interactions with
them. As a consequence, the incumbent's standing in the eyes of others may
turn even more negative. This could have very important consequences
in organizational contexts. More specifically, stigmatized job incumbents
might shy away from involvements and activities that would serve to im
prove their position in both the organization and the world of work.
SOME IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES OF STIGMATIZATION
Stigmatization can lead to a number of negative consequences, several of
which were alluded to above. Thus, this section considers four issues: (a)
the relation between unfair discrimination and justice (fairness), (b) access
discrimination, (c) treatment discrimination, and (d) the affective reactions
that observers have to stigmatized individuals.
Unfair Discrimination and Organizational Justice
Relative to individuals who control various types of resources in orga
nizational settings (i.e., ingroup members), stigmatized people are often
viewed as being members of outgroups. As such, they face three gen
eral types of injustice in such settings (Stone-Romero & Stone, 2004). First,
in spite of their inputs or contributions, stigmatized individuals may get
lower levels of outcomes than they deserve, resulting in distributive in
justice. Second, the procedures used to allocate outcomes to stigmatized
individuals may be less fair than those used to allocate outcomes to non-
stigmatized individuals, leading to procedural injustice. Third, and finally,
stigmatized individuals may be accorded less considerate interpersonal
treatment than nonstigmatized individuals, causing interpersonal injustice
Examples of various types of injustice are considered below.
Access Discrimination
To the degree that individuals (targets) are stigmatized, they have lowered
odds of being selected for jobs. There are at least two reasons for this. One
reason is that to the extent that targets feel stigmatized, they may view the
odds of being hired for a job as very low, and, as a result of the stigma's
"chilling effect" may not even apply. The other reason is that individuals
who make hiring decisions may not respond favorably to the employment
applications of stigmatized individuals. Among the many reasons for this is
that, as noted above, decision makers may have low expectations about the