Enhancing Majority Members’ Pro-Diversity Beliefs in Small Teams

Abstract

Majority members often react negatively to efforts to stimulate diversity. An important reason for this is that in diverse groups, majority members' own group bond is typically based on perceived prototypicality, which serves to disregard those who are different. In the present research we investigate how majority members' pro-diversity beliefs may be enhanced, by experimentally manipulating how the self is cognitively defined in relation to a diverse group. Specifically, we hypothesize that majority members' focus on the personal self (i.e., self-anchoring) rather than the social self (i.e., self-stereotyping) when creating a group bond may facilitate their pro-diversity beliefs and positive attitudes toward minority members. In two experiments we manipulated self-anchoring and self-stereotyping via mindset priming among ethnic majority members in diverse teams. As expected, results showed that relative to self-stereotyping, majority members' self-anchoring enhanced pro-diversity beliefs and positive attitudes toward minority members.