Page 81 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

3. RELATIONAL DEMOGRAPHY
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attitudes and behaviors. That is, if majority group members are less person­
ally comfortable with diversity, will the discomfort of majority members
impact minority group members' perceptions of discrimination and their
work attitudes and behaviors? These are just a few examples of how future
research might consider the minority and majority members' perspective
of or reactions to "others who are different" in the theories and tests of
relational demography.
Examine Multiple Demographic Characteristics at the Same Time
In their recent review of the organizational diversity literature, Jackson,
Joshi, and Erhardt (2003) found that less than 5% of studies between
1997 and 2002 (n = 63; did not include laboratory experiments with un­
dergraduates) addressed the question of whether the influence of a par­
ticular dimension of diversity depended on the presence or absence of
another dimension. Much of the relational demography research has
tended to examine dimensions of diversity independent of each other (i.e.,
Chattopadhyay, 1999) or has aggregated indicators of multiple dimensions
of diversity (e.g., Chatman & Flynn, 2001; Jehn et al., 1999). Although this
research is valuable, it does not truly capture individuals' demographic
complexity.
To aid in considering the multiple identities or category memberships
of each workgroup member, Lau and Murnighan (1998) introduced the
concept of faultlines, which divide work group members on the basis of
one or more attributes. For example, age faultlines divide groups into rel­
atively young and old subgroups. Group faultlines increase in strength as
more attributes are highly correlated, reducing the number and increasing
the homogeneity of the resulting subgroups. For example, a group com­
posed of three young, White, male entry-level auditors who had worked
for a company for less than a year and three middle-aged, Black female
vice-presidents who had been with the company for 20 years or more
would have a strong faultline because all of the listed characteristics are
perfectly correlated, which facilitates social identification processes among
subgroup members (Tajfel & Turner, 1979).
This should result in an increased likelihood of conflict over a wide array
of issues with "highly predictable memberships in two subgroups" (Lau &
Murnighan, 1998, p. 328). When potential subgroup members are similar
in one attribute (i.e., sex) but differ in others (i.e., race and age), group
members are less likely to expect similarity in attitudes, expectations, and
behavioral scripts, leading to weaker faultlines or subgroups.
Applying these analyses to the question of discrimination in work­
groups, minimum and maximum levels of diversity should lead to little