Page 294 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

261
11. PERSONALITY-BASED UNFAIR DISCRIMINATION
ability of stigmatized individuals to succeed on the job. These expectations
would be quite problematic when the stigma was based on a factor that was
unrelated to job performance or some other legitimate criterion. Denying
a stigmatized person a job who was actually qualified for it would be an
instance of distributive injustice.
Treatment Discrimination
Assuming that a stigmatized person was actually hired, their stigma could
affect the way he or she was treated on the job. Relative to nonstigmatized
individuals, those who are stigmatized might experience (a) less desirable
job assignments, (b) lower levels of mentoring, (c) decreased odds of being
promoted, (d) lesser levels of training and development, (e) lower perfor­
mance ratings, (f) physical segregation from coworkers, and (g) strained in­
terpersonal relations with supervisors and peers. The stigmatized individ­
ual would suffer distributive injustice, for example, if he or she were given
an unfavorable job assignment. In addition, he or she would experience
interpersonal injustice if supervisors and peers treated him or her in an un­
caring and impolite manner. Taken together, these and other forms of unfair
treatment might serve to significantly lower the job and/or career success
of stigmatized individuals. In addition, the unfair treatment would likely
have a negative impact of the psychological well-being of such individuals.

Affective Reactions to Stigmatized Individuals

Many types of stigmas have the capacity to evoke strong negative affec­
tive responses in observers (Bodenhausen, 1993; Hosoda, Stone-Romero,
& Stone, 2003; Stone et al., 1992; Stone & Colella, 1996). This is especially
true for marks that (a) are considered to be disruptive (e.g., person is con­
sidered to be emotionally unstable), (b) have to do with aesthetic factors
(e.g., gross physical deformities, severe skin problems), or (c) pose a threat
to the well-being of others (e.g., leprosy, psychopathy, AIDS). Especially
important here are personality-based stigmas. Individuals with such stig­
mas may be viewed as having the potential to be disruptive (e.g., to have
low levels of sociability) and to threaten the welfare of others (e.g., to have
low levels of emotional stability). As a result, they may be the targets of
both access and treatment discrimination in work organizations.
It deserves adding that research suggests that negative affective reac­
tions to stigmatized individuals are often automatic in nature (Boden­
huasen, 1993; Hosoda et al., 2003; Stone & Colella, 1996). One important
implication of this is that cognitively-oriented interventions that are de­
signed to alter such reactions may meet with little or no success.