Merrick Osborne | Be Careful What You Ask For: When and Why Soliciting Marginalized Employees’ Input Can Backfire
Institute of Personality and Social Research Colloquium
When confronting acts of prejudice in the workplace, allies may seek help from marginalized group members, thereby involving them (potentially against their will) in the confrontation. Across three pre-registered studies (N=1430) and three supplemental studies (two of which were pre-registered)—using multiple prejudice confrontation and help-seeking situations and different marginalized groups (i.e., women and racially marginalized individuals)—we find that allies' help-seeking has negative affective consequences for the marginalized group member and negative evaluative consequences for the ally. Specifically, members of marginalized groups whose help is directly solicited (vs. not directly solicited) by an ally during a prejudice confrontation experience more emotional burden; in turn, they view the ally as less deserving of status and seek to minimize their future exposure to the ally. These findings highlight the theoretical value and practical importance of examining prejudice confrontations from the marginalized group member's perspective.
Dr. Osborne is the Inaugural Racial Equity Postdoctoral Scholar at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and is currently on the job market. He received his PhD in December 2022 from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. His research uncovers the promises and perils that low-status employees face when expressing themselves at work. Using laboratory, archival, and machine learning methodologies, he problematizes theoretical assumptions about how low-status employees gain (or lose) status through expressing themselves. Some of his work is grounded in the context of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. However, he also examines self- in other domains. For instance: some of his projects consider how low-status employees can call out bias during technology development, while another research stream investigates how low-status employees evaluate organizational voice in workplaces with a higher (vs. lower) prevalence of different moral priorities.
Date:
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Events Berkeley URL:
https://events.berkeley.edu/live/events/273343-merrick-osborne-be-careful-what-you-ask-for-when