Rethinking the Baseline in Diversity Research: Should We Be Explaining the Effects of Homogeneity?
Name
Apfelbaum Phillips Richeson PPS - in press.pdf
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165.29 KB
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Author(s)
Apfelbaum, Evan Paul
Phillips, Katherine W.
Richeson, Jennifer A.
Date Issued
May 2014
Journal
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Publisher
Sage Publications
Citation
Apfelbaum, E. P., K. W. Phillips, and J. A. Richeson. “Rethinking the Baseline in Diversity Research: Should We Be Explaining the Effects of Homogeneity?” Perspectives on Psychological Science 9, no. 3 (May 1, 2014): 235–244.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
It is often surprisingly difficult to make definitive scientific statements about the functional value of group diversity. We suggest that one clear pattern in the group diversity literature is the prevailing convention of interpreting outcomes as the effect of diversity alone. Although work in this arena typically compares diverse groups with homogeneous ones, we most often conceive of homogeneous groups as a baseline—a reference point from which we can understand how diversity has changed behavior or what type of response is “normal.” In this article, we offer a new perspective through a focus on two propositions. The first proposition is that homogeneity has independent effects of its own—effects that, in some cases, are robust in comparison with the effects of diversity. The second proposition is that even though subjective responses in homogeneous groups are often treated as a neutral indicator of how people would ideally respond in a group setting, evidence suggests that these responses are often less objective or accurate than responses in diverse groups. Overall, we believe that diversity research may unwittingly reveal important insights regarding the effects of homogeneity.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614527466
