Confrontation as a Workplace Intervention: Exploring the Role of Hostility in Organizations Addressing Gender Bias

Radosch, Lydia (2023) Confrontation as a Workplace Intervention: Exploring the Role of Hostility in Organizations Addressing Gender Bias. Master thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

Confrontation has proven to be an effective tool for raising individuals’ awareness about and reducing their prejudiced behavior. While particularly subtle sexism is still prevalent in today's workplaces, how companies respond to sexist actions can have a relevant impact on their employees. The present research investigates how a non-interpersonal confrontation of gender bias within a work context affects confronted individuals’ commitment to mitigate bias and their interpersonal attitudes towards an organizational confronter. The confrontation was phrased either more or less hostilely to examine the consequences of these diverging framings. Participants (N = 106) first read a vignette in which they had made a subtle sexist comment towards a female co-worker. They were then randomly assigned into one of three conditions: either not confronted (control), confronted more hostilely, or confronted less hostilely. Confronted participants received a confrontational article written by the fictional companies’ HR director and framed according to their assigned condition. Results showed no difference in participants’ future commitment to mitigate gender bias between the three experimental conditions. Furthermore, all participants indicated an equal liking of and respect for the confronter. These findings challenge the notion that non-interpersonal confrontation can be an effective intervention within companies. Although organizational representatives do not seem to suffer negative backlash when confronting sexism non-interpersonally, they also may not elicit the intended change in prejudiced attitudes. Future research is needed to investigate how confrontation within workplaces can be implemented as an intervention to successfully curb employees’ gender bias. Keywords: confrontation, workplace sexism, prejudice reduction, interpersonal attitudes, hostility

Item Type:	Thesis (Master)
Supervisor name:	Graso, M.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology (WOP) [Master Psychology]
Date Deposited:	25 Aug 2023 10:57
Last Modified:	25 Aug 2023 10:57
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/2801

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