Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T07:53:55.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Maybe Too Little But Not Too Late: Four Challenges for Employment Discrimination Research in I–O

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2015

Eva Derous*
Affiliation:
Ghent University
Alexander Buijsrogge
Affiliation:
Ghent University
Ann Marie Ryan
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
*
E-mail: [email protected], Address: Department of Personnel Management, Work and Organizational Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Extract

In their focal article “Gone fishing,” Ruggs et al. (2013) suggest that members of marginalized groups, such as ethnic/racial minorities other than Blacks, receive too little attention in top-tier industrial and organizational (I–O) psychology journals. Although we acknowledge the particularities each stigmatized group must face in the workplace and society, our commentary pleads for a better understanding of (a) general, underlying processes of discrimination across stigmatized groups while taking (b) complexity of discrimination into consideration. Whereas we concur with the authors regarding the need for more research, relevant studies on employment discrimination—even on the marginalized groups mentioned in the focal article—have been published, albeit many of them outside the focal I–O psychology journals mentioned and even outside the I–O psychology field. We believe that employment discrimination research might further benefit from (c) triangulation and (d) cross-cultural validation to advance insights, two other aspects that the focal article only slightly touched upon. We will illustrate these four challenges for future research on employment discrimination in I–O psychology with findings on hiring discrimination of Arab ethnics, one of the marginalized groups in the focal article, and one to which we have devoted considerable research effort.

Type
Commentaries
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barron, L. G., Hebl, M., & King, E. D. (2011). Effects of manifest ethnic identification on employment discrimination. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17, 2330.Google Scholar
Denzin, N. (2006). Sociological methods: A sourcebook. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction.Google Scholar
Derous, E., Nguyen, H.-H. D., & Ryan, A. M. (2009). Hiring discrimination against Arab minorities: Interactions between prejudice and job characteristics. Human Performance, 22, 297320.Google Scholar
Derous, E., & Ryan, A. M. (2012). Documenting the adverse impact of resumé screening: Degree of ethnic identification matters. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 20, 464474.Google Scholar
Derous, E., Ryan, A. M., & Nguyen, H.-H. D. (2012). Multiple categorization in resumé screening: Examining effects on hiring discrimination against Arab applicants in field and lab settings. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33, 544570.Google Scholar
Hanges, P. J., & Feinberg, E. G. (2010). International perspectives on adverse impact: Europe and beyond. In Outtz, J. L. (Ed.), Adverse impact: Implications for organizational staffing and high stakes selection (pp. 349373). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kaiser, C. R., & Pratt-Hyatt, J. S. (2009). Distributing prejudice unequally: Do Whites direct their prejudice toward strongly identified minorities? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 432445.Google Scholar
Kulik, C. T., Roberson, L., & Perry, E. L. (2007). The multiple-category problem: Category activation and inhibition in the hiring process. Academy of Management Review, 32, 529548.Google Scholar
Lang, J. W. B., Kersting, M., Hülsheger, U. R., & Lang, J. (2010). General mental ability, narrower cognitive abilities, and job performance: The perspective of the nested-factors model of cognitive abilities. Personnel Psychology, 63, 595640.Google Scholar
Mitchell, G. (2012). Revisiting truth or triviality: The external validity of research in the psychological laboratory. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 109118.Google Scholar
Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin, 126, 247259.Google Scholar
Ruggs, E. N., Law, C., Cox, C. B., Roehling, M. V., Wiener, R. L., Hebl, M. R., & Barron, L. (2013). Gone fishing: I-O psychologists' missed opportunities to understand marginalized employees' experiences with discrimination. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 6, 3960.Google Scholar
Sidanius, J., & Veniegas, R. C. (2000). Gender and race discrimination: The interactive nature of disadvantage. In Oskamp, S. (Ed.), Reducing prejudice and discrimination. The Claremont Symposium on Applied Social Psychology (pp. 4769). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Worchel, S., & Austin, W. G. (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 724). Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar
Tippins, N. T. (2010). Adverse impact in employee selection procedures from the perspective of an organizational consultant. In Outtz, J. L. (Ed.), Adverse impact: Implications for organizational staffing and high stakes selection (pp. 201225). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar