Although the American workforce is becoming more diverse, Black managers continue to face obstacles to success. One of the greatest challenges facing Black leaders is aversive racism, a subtle but insidious form of prejudice that emerges when people can justify their negative feelings towards Blacks based on factors other than race. The present study (N = 156) revealed that participants gave negative ratings to Black leaders and White subordinates and positive ratings to Black subordinates and White leaders, thus affirming these workers in their stereotypical societal positions. Furthermore, participants used even innocuous past mistakes of Black leaders to justify their negative evaluations of them. The theoretical and practical implications for leadership theories, performance appraisals, and organizational policy are discussed.
References
1.
Aldefer, C.P., Tucker, R.C., Morgan, D.R., & Drasgow, F. (1983). Black and White cognitions of changing race-relations in management. Journal of Occupational Behaviour, 4 (2)2 105-136.
2.
Berkowitz, L., & Donnerstein, E. (1982). External validity is more than skin deep: Some answers to criticisms of laboratory experiments. American Psychologist, 37, 245-257.
3.
Biernat, M., & Kobrynowicz, D. (1997). Gender- and race-based standards of competence: Lower minimum standards but higher ability standards for devalued groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 72, 544-557.
4.
Brown, R.P., Chamsangavej, T., Keough, K.A., Newman, M.L., & Rentfrow, P.J. (2000). Putting the "affirm" into affirmative action: Preferential selection and academic performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79 (5)2 736-747.
5.
Cascio, W.F., & Bernardin, H.J. (1981). Implications of performance appraisal litigation for personnel decisions. Personnel Psychology , 34, 211-226.
6.
Cioffi, D. (1994, October). Who's opinion is this anyway? Self-inferential effects of representing one's social group. Paper presented at the Conference of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology , Incline Village, NV.
7.
Craig, K.M. & Feasel, K.E. (1998). Do solo arrangements lead to attributions of tokenism? Perceptions of selection criteria and task assignments in task-oriented groups . Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28, 1810-1836.
8.
Craig, K.M. & Rand, K.A. (1998). The perceptually "privileged" group member: Consequences of solo status for African Americans and Whites in task groups. Small Group Research, 29, 339-358.
9.
Crocker, J., & McGraw, K.M. (1984). What's good for the goose is not good for the gander. American Behavioral Scientist, 27, 357-369.
10.
Dipboye, R.L. (1985). Some neglected variables in research on discrimination in appraisals. Academy of Management Review, 10, 116-127.
11.
DiTomaso, N., & Thompson, D.E. (1988). The advancement of minorities into corporate management: An overview. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 6, 281-312.
12.
Dovidio, J.F., & Gaertner, S.L. (1981). The effects of race, status, and ability on helping behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly , 44, 192-203.
13.
Dovidio, J.F., & Gaertner, S.L. (1996). Affirmative action, unintentional racial biases, and intergroup relations. Journal of Social Issues, 52(4), 51-75.
14.
Fiske, S.T., & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: Mc Graw-Hill .
15.
Ford, J.K., Kraiger, K., & Schechtman, S.L. (1986). Study of race effects in objective indices and subjective evaluations of performance: A meta-analysis of performance criteria. Psychological Bulletin,99, 330-337.
16.
Gaertner, S.L., & Dovidio, J.F. (1977). The subtlety of White racism, arousal, and helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, (10), 691-707.
17.
Gaertner, S.L., & Dovidio, J.F. (1986). The aversive form of racism. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination, and racism (pp. 61-89). Orlando, FL: Academic.
18.
Gorman, C.D., Clover, W.H., & Doherty, M.E. (1978). Can we learn anything about interviewing real people from "interviews" of paper people? Two studies of the external validity of a paradigm. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance , 22, 165-192.
19.
Greenhaus, J.H., & Parasuraman, S. (1993). Job performance attributions and career advancement prospects: An examination of gender and race effects . Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 55, 273-297.
20.
Greenhaus, J.H., Parasuraman, S., & Wormley, W.M. (1993). Effects of race on organizational experiences, job performance evaluations, and career outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 33 (1), 64-86.
21.
Haley, H. (2001). Crisscrossing gender lines and color lines: A test of the subordinate male target hypothesis. Paper presented at the American Psychological Society, Toronto.
22.
Hamner, W.C., Kim, J.S., Baird, L., & Bigoness, W.J. (1974). Race and sex as determinants of ratings by potential employers in a simulated work-sampling task. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 705-711.
23.
Heilman, M.E., Block, C.J., & Lucas, J.A. (1992). Presumed incompetent? Stigmatization and affirmative action efforts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(4), 536-544.
24.
Heilman, M.E., Simon, M.C., & Pepper, D.P. (1987). Intentionally favored, unintentionally harmed? Impact of sex-based preferential selection on self-perceptions and self-evaluations . Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 62-68.
25.
Jackson, L.A., Sullivan, L.A., & Hodge, C.N. (1993). Stereotype effects on attributions, predictions, and evaluations: No two social judgments are quite alike. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 69-84.
26.
Jackson, P.B., Thoits, P.A., & Taylor, H.F. (1995). Composition of the workplace and psychological well-being: The effects of tokenism on America's Black elite. Social Forces, 74, 543-557.
27.
Johnston, W.B., & Packer, A.E. (1987). Workforce 2000: Work and workers for the twenty-first century. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor.
28.
Judd, C.M., & Park, B. (1988). Outgroup homogeneity: Judgments of variability at the individual and group levels. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 778-788.
29.
Knight, J.L., & Giuliano, T.A. (2001, April). Sporting stereotypes: The effects of gender role-inconsistency on perceptions of male and female athletes. Paper presented at the American Psychological Society, Toronto.
30.
Knight, J.L., Giuliano, T.A., & Sanchez-Ross, M.G. (2001). Famous or infamous? The influence of celebrity status and race on perceptions of responsibility for rape. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 23, 183-190.
31.
Kraiger, K., & Ford, J.K. (1985). A meta-analysis of ratee race effects in performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 56-65.
32.
Linville, P.W., & Jones, E.E. (1980). Polarized appraisals of outgroup members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 689-703.
33.
Martell, R.F., Lane, D.M., & Emrich, C.E. (1996). Male-Female differences: A computer simulation . American Psychologist, 51, 157-158.
34.
Morrison, A.M., & Von Gilinow, M.A. (1990). Women and minorities in management. American Psychologist, 45, 200-208.
35.
McConahay, J.B. (1983). Modem racism and modem discrimination: The effects of race, racial attitudes, and context on simulated hiring decisions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9, 551-558.
36.
Orpen, C. (1981). Causal attributions for the success and failure of Black and White managers. Journal of Occupational Behaviour , 2, 81-87. Pettigrew , T.F., & Martin, J. (1987). Shaping the organizational context for Black American inclusion. Journal of Social Issues, 25, 43-69.
37.
Pettigrew, T.F., & Martin, J. (1987). Shaping the organizational context for Black American inclusion. Journal of Social Issues, 43, 41-78.
38.
Richards, S.A., & Jaffee, C.L. (1972). Blacks supervising Whites: A study of interracial difficulties in working together in a simulated organization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 56 (3), 234-240.
39.
Rogers, T.B., & Prentice-Dunn, S. (1981). Deindividuation and anger-mediated interracial aggression: Unmasking regressive racism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 63-73.
40.
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L.F. (1968). Teacher expectations for the disadvantaged. Scientific American, 218 (4).
41.
Runkle, J., & Ayman, R. (1997, April). Relationships between ethnic stereotypes and requisite management characteristics: The role of respondents' ethnicity . Paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. St. Louis, MO.
42.
Sackett, P.R., DuBois, C.L.Z., Noe, A.W. (1991). Tokenism in performance evaluation: The effects of work group representation on male-female and white-Black differences in performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 263-267.
43.
Saenz, D. (1991). Token status: The negative consequences of distinctiveness . Unpublished manuscript.
44.
Sanchez-Hucles, J.V. (1997). Jeopardy not bonus status for African American women in the work force: Why does the myth of advantage persist?American Journal of Community Psychology, 25, 565-580.
45.
Scandura, T.A., & Lankau, M.J. (1996). Developing diverse leaders: A leader-member exchange approach. Leadership Quarterly, 7 (2), 243-263.
46.
Smith, T.W. (1990). Ethnic images. (GSS Topical Report No. 19). Chicago: University of Chicago, National Opinion Research Center.
47.
Snyder, M. (1981). Seek and ye shall find: Testing hypotheses about other people. In E. T. Higgins, C. P. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Social cognition: The Ontario symposium on personality and social psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
48.
Steele, C. (1999, August). Thin ice: "Stereotype threat" and Black college students. The Atlantic Monthly, 44-54.
49.
Taylor, S.E., Fiske, S.T., Etcoff, N.L., & Ruderman, A.J. (1978). Categorical bases of person memory and stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 778-793.
50.
This Nation (2001). This Nation: The Most Comprehensive Guide to American Government and Politics on the Net [On-line]. Available: http://www.thisnation.com/question/015.html
51.
Valian, V. (1998). Why so slow? The advancement of women. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.
52.
Yarkin, K.L., Town, J.P., & Wallston, B.S. (1982). Blacks and women must try harder: Stimulus persons' race and sex attributions of causality. Personalitv andSocial Psychology Bulletin, 8, 21-24.
