Psychology
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Item The Gender Dynamics of Dissent in Organizations(2012) Severance, Laura; Gelfand, Michele J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Contemporary approaches to organizational behavior tout dissent as critical to organizational success. However, dissenters often incur penalties for expressing opinions that differ from the majority. The current work examines dissent as a gendered phenomenon, taking into account how the social context (i.e., female-dominated, male-dominated, and mixed gender work groups) affects both backlash incurred by female dissenters as well as group performance. Study 1 demonstrated that female dissenters incurred more backlash than did male dissenters and that female participants reacted especially negatively to female dissenters. Study 3 demonstrated that female dissenters expected to receive the most backlash for speaking up in female-dominated groups relative to male-dominated and mixed gender groups. Study 4 demonstrated that women were actually most likely to dissent in female-dominated groups (relative to male-dominated and mixed gender groups), although this did not translate into differences in group performance. However, dissenter communication style emerged as a key moderator of objective (i.e., group performance) and subjective (i.e., backlash toward the dissenter) outcomes as a function of group composition. Specifically, in female-dominated groups, women's use of impolite communication tactics (e.g., interrupting) were related to decreased performance and increased backlash. Further, women were able to anticipate these backlash consequences. Overall, this work advances the understanding of gendered dissent dynamics in the workplace and how these influence not only female employees but also the organizations in which they are embedded.Item Social Exclusion and the Choice of Important Groups(2009) Fishman, Shira; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social connections are fundamental to our existence. As a result, social exclusion is a painful and distressing experience. When belonging is thwarted, people seek inclusion which can be achieved through group membership. Thus, excluded individuals and/or those whose need to belong is particularly strong will be particularly motivated to join groups. Moreover, to the extent that the need to belong is satisfied by closeness with other group members, and closeness is a feature of group cohesion, excluded individuals or ones with a strong need to belong are likely to be attracted to highly cohesive groups. Finally, the subjective importance of a group to its members should determine the degree of perceived cohesion. Importance of a group is defined as the group's centrality to individuals' social identity. The more central a given dimension is to one's identity, the greater the attraction to individuals sharing that dimension (Byrne, 1961). Hence, the more important the group, the greater the attraction of the members to each other, defining group cohesion. Ultimately then, the greater the individuals' prior experience of exclusion or the greater their need to belong, the greater their motivation should be to join important (vs. less important) groups. These notions are investigated in the present dissertation. A review of the literature on social exclusion and the similarity-attraction hypothesis is presented followed by two studies showing that, both in the lab and in the real world, individuals who have been socially excluded want to join and/or feel more connected to important groups.