Research

Published Research

What Is Good Isn't Always Fair: On the Unintended Effects of Framing Diversity as Good

Authors: Sophie Trawalter, Sara Driskell, Martin Davidson

Many proponents of diversity stress that diversity is good—good for universities to further their educational missions and good for businesses, for hiring talent and generating financial returns to shareholders. In this work, we examined costs of framing diversity as good for organizations vs. fair; specifically, we examined whether framing diversity as good for organizations broadens people’s definitions of diversity and increases racial bias.

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Published Research

Suspicion of White People’s Motives Relates to Relative Accuracy in Detecting External Motivation to Respond without Prejudice

Authors: Sophie Trawalter, Jennifer LaCosse, Taylor Tuscherer, Jonathan W. Kunstman, E. Ashby Plant, Brenda Major

As a result of prevalent pressure to inhibit prejudice, racial minorities may wonder whether White people’s nonprejudiced behavior is primarily motivated by personal commitments to egalitarianism (i.e., internal motivation) or superficial efforts to appear nonprejudiced (i.e., external motivation). The present work investigated whether minority group members chronically suspicious of White people’s motives (i.e., those who believe White people are more externally than internally motivated), are more accurate than those who are less suspicious in detecting the motives behind White individuals’ pleasant behavior toward minorities. 

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Published Research

Mental models at work: Cognitive causes and consequences of conflict in organizations

Authors: Eileen Chou, Nir Halevy, Taya R. Cohen, James J. Katz, A. T. Panter

This research investigated the reciprocal relationship between mental models of conflict and various forms of dysfunctional social relations in organizations, including experiences of task and relationship conflicts, interpersonal hostility, workplace ostracism, and abusive supervision.

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Published Research

Investing in Karma: When Wanting Promotes Helping

Authors: Benjamin Converse, A., Risen, J. L., & Carter, T. J.

People often face outcomes of important events that are beyond their personal control, such as when they wait for an acceptance letter, job offer, or medical test results. We suggest that when wanting and uncertainty are high and personal control is lacking, people may be more likely to help others, as if they can encourage fate’s favor by doing good deeds proactively. 

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Published Research

Instrumentality boosts appreciation: Helpers are more appreciated while they are useful

Authors: Benjamin Converse, A. Fishbach

We propose that in social interactions, appreciation depends on the helper’s instrumentality: The more motivated one is to accomplish a goal and the more one perceives a potential helper as able to facilitate that goal, the more appreciation one will feel for that helper. Three experiments support this instrumentality-boost hypothesis by showing that beneficiaries feel more appreciation for their helpers while they are receiving help toward an ongoing task than after that task has been completed or after the helper has been deemed no longer instrumental. 

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Published Research

Relative deprivation and intergroup competition

Two experiments utilized a new experimental paradigm—the Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemma— Maximizing Difference (IPD-MD) game—to study how relative deprivation at the group level affects intergroup competition. The IPD-MD game enables group members to make a costly contribution to either a within-group pool that benefits fellow ingroup members, or a between-group pool, which, in addition, harms outgroup members.

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