College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/8
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Organizational Characteristics as a Justification of Employment Discrimination(2010) Siegel, Eric Forrest; Stangor, Charles; Hanges, Paul J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research explores the processes behind discrimination within organizations using the Justification-Suppression (JS) model. According to the JS model, internal cognitions, called justifications, can disinhibit prejudice and cause discrimination. The policies and characteristics of an organization can be a source of the justifications that lead to discrimination within organizations. To explore this hypothesis, participants completed a hiring simulation task. In this experiment, the racial makeup of the company was manipulated so that the company was either homogeneously White or racially diverse. In addition, company communications, in the form of e-mails, were manipulated to change the company's tolerance for discrimination. Both the demographics and communications manipulations led the participants to discriminate in their hiring decisions. When both demographics and communications indicated discrimination was acceptable, the degree of discrimination was greater than when there was a single source of justification. This implies that an organization's characteristics can lead to increased discrimination.Item Questioning the Validity of the IAT: Knowledge or Attitude(2006-12-13) Siegel, Eric Forrest; Sigall, Harold; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A series of experiments was conducted to determine if the Implicit Association Test is a valid measure of attitude, or if it instead reflects knowledge of the groups being tested. Participants were given positive or negative descriptions groups of which they had no previous knowledge. They then completed an IAT testing their attitudes towards these groups. The results revealed that the IAT was sensitive to whether the participants believed these descriptions were accurate. This indicates that the IAT measures more than simple knowledge, it is sensitive to whether knowledge is endorsed. These findings support the validity of the IAT as an attitude measure.