UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS TO RECEIVING AND RESPONDING TO CHALLENGING VOICE REGARDING SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract

Despite increasing awareness of issues related to social inequality in the workplace and the proliferation of efforts to combat barriers to equality between social groups, members of non-dominant social groups continue to be disadvantaged within organizations. In my dissertation, I focus on one key barrier to transforming practices, norms, systems and structures which sustain and perpetuate inequality between different social groups: the psychological threat of individuals who are gatekeepers to change. Drawing upon social psychological theories of self-concept threat, as well as theory and evidence in the voice and feedback literatures, I explore recipient-driven factors which shape responses to challenging voice regarding social inequality through two papers. In Paper 1, I examine individual response to challenging voice regarding gender inequality by varying the experience of self-concept threat. I also examine how values, beliefs, and preferences for growth may moderate the experience of self-concept threat. Results indicate that the impact of increased self-concept threat exposure varies in terms of gender-based advantage – with men responding more negatively under increased threat exposure. However, the impact of self-concept threat on response is moderated by individual values of growth for both men and women (albeit in different ways). In Paper 2, I compare the response of advantaged versus disadvantaged racial group members to challenging voice regarding racial inequality, and I examine how experiences of threat as opposed to empathy explain differences in response. I argue that empathy for the experience of being disadvantaged explains differences in response more than threat, and that this empathy deficit cannot be explained simply by ingroup favoritism/outgroup bias or anti-egalitarian beliefs. To interrogate the idea that the worsened response of advantaged group members can be explained by racial ingroup favoritism and bias against racial outgroups I vary the race of the voicer, control for anti-egalitarian beliefs and analyze differences in advantaged group member response at different levels of socioeconomic status. Results indicate that poorer ratings of voice and voicers by advantaged racial group members persist even after controlling for anti-egalitarian beliefs. Findings suggest that empathy mediates the relationship between advantaged racial group membership and voice response more than threat, but this empathy deficit may be greater for higher SES advantaged racial group members.