Social Identity and Diversity

Question 1

What is social identity?

Answer 1

How you define who you are in the world:

Being___ is a part of who I am

Question 2

What is diversity?

Answer 2

The hetereogeneity of identities in social life

• Every new person is an ingroup member- and an outgroup member
• Each of us is a minority in some situation

Question 3

Why do employees care about social identity and diversity?

Answer 3

We want to be authentic but not conspicuous at work

Question 4

What is workplace stigmatization and why is it a problem?

Answer 4

Devaluing of your identity
-Hurts job satisfaction and increases turnover
-hurts performance
Ranges from extreme hostility to everyday incivilities

Question 5

How does stigma effect satisfaction?

Answer 5

Interpersonal relationships are central to job satisfaction -> no one wants to work where they feel unwelcome/disrespected

Question 6

What’s the orchestra thing?

Answer 6

Study of 11 major symphony orchestras

• historically, new musicians were selected by conductor
• most gradually moved to auditions, committee selection
• eventually, blind auditions -> this step increased the likelihood that a female musician would be hired by 25%

Question 7

What do diverse workforces do?

Answer 7

Access and Legitimacy
Can offer access to growing minority markets
-diversity as business value
-differences are celebrated

Question 8

Risks to access and legitimacy

Answer 8

No one wants to be valued in a company only for their cultural/minority status
Diversity leverage applies only to niche markets

Question 9

Why do organizations care about social identity and diversity?

Answer 9

1) keep you happy and productive
2) Discrimination and fairness
3) access and legitimacy - matching the organization to its constituents
4) fostering better ideas -> innovation, creativity and divergent thinking

Question 10

How does stigma affect performance?

Answer 10

• There is a direct respect -> performance relationship
• Stereotype threat
• awareness of a stereotype about your group hurts your performance (ex African-American students answered GRE problems)
• Hiding yourself is taxing to your performance (ex being asked to conceal sexual identity to work partners

Question 11

Organizations and discrimination and fairness

Answer 11

• organizations are legally required to avoid workplace discrimination on the basis of many things
• does not have to be intentional: “operates to exclude

Question 12

Explain stereotyping and discrimination as system 1 and 2

Answer 12

most people aim to be fair and unbiased (system 2)
personal goals don’t match with what actually happens- blame on system 1
(example of resume thing)

Question 13

So what can be done to mitigate issues?

Answer 13

1) Collect data- do your hiring and promotion practices affect community, where is the pipeline leaky
2) shape environment
- broader recruitment efforts
- objective criteria established in advance
- diversity fosters diversity- positive past experiences reduce intergroup tension

Question 14

Organizations that want to maximize benefits of diversity should expect:

Answer 14

conflict and employee dissatisfaction in the short term

and better ideas and a more successful organization in the long term

Question 15

How does fostering better ideas work

Answer 15

teams that are less similar may experience more conflict, take more time to reach a solution
but: they may also generate more creative, more innovative ideas (vs a homogenous team)

Question 16

why does diversity often lead to innovation?

Answer 16

no right answer, just different perspectives on how to solve a problem
this is the opportunity- and challenge, of diversity
even living abroad increases creativity! go you!

Question 17

easy phrase on diversity and innovation

Answer 17

when two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary