{"id":73954,"date":"2024-08-30T00:15:59","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T04:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=73954"},"modified":"2024-08-30T00:15:59","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T04:15:59","slug":"conservative-opponents-of-dei-may-not-be-as-colorblind-as-they-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/conservative-opponents-of-dei-may-not-be-as-colorblind-as-they-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative opponents of DEI may not be as colorblind as they claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Critics of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to by the acronym DEI, are increasingly using\u00a0boycotts<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0bans<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0fight against their use<\/a>. People often argue that this anti-DEI backlash is motivated by\u00a0race-neutral concerns<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 for example, that DEI practices are irrelevant to work performance or are\u00a0too political<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But our\u00a0recent research<\/a>, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, suggests that conservative critiques of DEI often boil down to one thing: anti-Black racism.<\/p>\n

As<\/a>\u00a0psychology<\/a>\u00a0researchers<\/a>, we wanted to understand why people react to DEI the way they do. So, we recruited more than 1,000 people to take part in three related studies.<\/p>\n

For each study, we measured participants\u2019 conservatism on a seven-point scale ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. Single-item measures such as this are\u00a0often used by researchers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also measured participants\u2019 anti-Black racism using the\u00a0symbolic racism scale<\/a>, which is a well-validated and commonly used measure of anti-Black racism. Research suggests that as overt racism has become less acceptable, people tend to direct racism toward symbols of racial equality, like DEI. That meant the symbolic racism scale was an ideal measure of anti-Black racism for our purposes.<\/p>\n

How we did our work<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In the first study, we asked participants to read a job advertisement from either a company that emphasizes DEI or a company that emphasized teamwork and good professional relationships. Then, participants rated their interest in the job and how fair they thought the company was. In later studies, they also indicated how well they thought they\u2019d fit in.<\/p>\n

We found that participants who scored higher on our measure of conservatism expressed significantly less interest in pursuing a job at the company promoting DEI, and viewed it as less fair compared with the company promoting teamwork.<\/p>\n

We then added symbolic racism to our statistical model. Once we did that, our measure of conservatism no longer predicted job interest or perceived fairness in the pro-DEI company condition.<\/p>\n

In other words, symbolic racism accounted for the effect of conservatism on outcomes in the DEI condition. This suggests that conservative participants\u2019 reactions to DEI aren\u2019t independent from symbolic racism.<\/p>\n

We expanded on these findings in our following studies. In the second study, participants were randomly assigned to read descriptions of similar pro-DEI or pro-teamwork companies. Additionally, half of the participants were told why the organization supported either DEI or teamwork, and the other half were not.<\/p>\n

We found that participants who scored higher on conservatism expressed less interest in applying for a job at the pro-DEI company and viewed it as being less fair, regardless of whether DEI \u2013 or teamwork \u2013 was clearly tied to job-related criteria.<\/p>\n

We estimated statistical models similar to the ones we built in the first study. And we again found that when we added symbolic racism to our statistical model, negative views of the DEI company disappeared. Thus, negative reactions to the pro-DEI organization seemed to reflect race-related rather than job-related concerns.<\/p>\n

In the third study, participants read job advertisements for a pro-DEI, pro-teamwork or pro-family-values company. The pro-family-values company was described as seeking to preserve traditional values.<\/p>\n

We found that participants who more strongly endorsed conservatism were more interested in applying for a job at that company, and viewed it as more fair and a better \u201cfit\u201d in the pro-family-values scenario. The opposite was true of reactions to the pro-DEI company.<\/p>\n

When we added symbolic racism to our models, we found that positive views of the pro-family-values company remained significant, but negative views of the pro-DEI company disappeared. This suggests that opposition to DEI is rooted in anti-Black racism, not concerns about politics.<\/p>\n

Why it matters<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Given the\u00a0fraught political environment<\/a>, organizations will need to address criticisms of DEI programs. Successfully responding to these criticisms requires addressing the underlying motive \u2014 which our research suggests is often anti-Black racism.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As part of the hiring process, many\u00a0companies<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0organizations<\/a>\u00a0ask job applicants about their views on DEI or what they\u2019ve done to promote it. In our study, we included requests for similar statements.<\/p>\n

However, no one has tested whether people\u2019s answers to these statements actually predict performance related to DEI. That\u2019s what our team plans to examine next \u2014 whether someone\u2019s stated views on DEI can forecast job outcomes like collaborating effectively in diverse teams.<\/p>\n

Author Bios:<\/strong> Abigail Folberg is Assistant Professor of Psychology, Laura Brooks Dueland is an Adjunct Instructor in Psychology both at the University of Nebraska Omaha and Mikki Hebl is the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Professor of Psychological Sciences and Management at Rice University<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Critics of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to by the acronym DEI, are increasingly using\u00a0boycotts\u00a0and\u00a0bans\u00a0to\u00a0fight against their use. People often argue that this anti-DEI backlash is motivated by\u00a0race-neutral concerns\u00a0\u2013 for example, that DEI practices are irrelevant to work performance or are\u00a0too political. But our\u00a0recent research, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86115],"tags":[434977],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-73954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-dei"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nConservative opponents of DEI may not be as colorblind as they claim - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/conservative-opponents-of-dei-may-not-be-as-colorblind-as-they-claim\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conservative opponents of DEI may not be as colorblind as they claim - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Critics of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to by the acronym DEI, are increasingly using\u00a0boycotts\u00a0and\u00a0bans\u00a0to\u00a0fight against their use. 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