Protocol: Discrimination attributions in the workplace – a scoping review of causes and correlates

Abstract

Rationale: Altogether, previous research attests to the importance of multiple factors that refer to personal characteristics (either of those being targeted by, or witnessing discriminatory behavior), situational factors that are inherent to the discriminatory event as well as contextual features that exert influence on discrimination attributions. However, a clear overview of this research field is lacking, which makes it difficult to grasp which factors have been studied – either in isolation or jointly with other factors - to understand discrimination attributions, how robust the existing evidence is and where future research is needed. With this scoping review, we aim to systematically synthesize the existing evidence and identify the state of knowledge on the correlational and causal impact of different factors on discrimination attributions, building on and extending the reviews of Major and Sawyer (2009) and Barreto and Ellemers (2015). Additionally, this scoping review includes more modern forms of discrimination, such as microaggressions or workplace incivility as well (Marchiondo et al., 2018), allowing us to draw general conclusions about whether the same determinants and correlates have been studied in relation to modern forms of discrimination.