Organizations aim to convey that they are diverse and inclusive, in part, to recruit racial minorities. We investigate a previously unexamined downside of this recruitment strategy: diversity dishonesty, that is, belief that an organization is falsely or incorrectly inflating its actual diversity. In four studies (total N = 871), we found that diversity dishonesty heightened minorities’ concerns about fitting in, being authentic, and performing well at the organization. We also found that evidence-based cues (which “show” observers whether the organization has a positive or negative diversity climate), but not expressed cues (which “tell” observers about the organization’s diversity), affect these expectations. Using correlational methodologies, Study 1 found these effects were pertinent to African American and Latinx participants’ beliefs about their current workplaces, holding other diversity-related measures constant. Studies 2 to 4 used experimental methods to replicate these findings with African American participants, using a hypothetical workplace setting.

In the current research, we posited the stigma-by-prejudice-transfer effect, which proposes that stigmatized group members (e.g., White women) are threatened by prejudice that is directed at other stigmatized group members (e.g., African Americans) because they believe that prejudice has monolithic qualities. While most stigma researchers assume that there is a direct correspondence between the attitude of prejudiced individuals and the targets (i.e., sexism affects women, racism affects racial minorities), the five studies reported here demonstrate that White women can be threatened by racism (Study 1, 3, 4, and 5) and men of color by sexism (Study 2). Robust to perceptions of liking and the order in which measures were administered, results showed that prejudice transfers between racism and sexism were driven by the presumed social dominance orientation of the prejudiced individual. In addition, important downstream consequences, such as the increased likelihood of anticipated stigma, expectations of unfair treatment, and the attribution of negative feedback to sexism, appeared for stigmatized individuals.

Racial essentialism refers to the widely held belief that race is a biological, stable, and natural category. Although research finds very little evidence that race has biological underpinnings, racial essentialist beliefs persist and are linked to negative outgroup consequences. This study initially demonstrates that label and visual ambiguity concurrently inform racial categorization. It then tests whether exposure to racially ambiguous targets (a) challenges essentialism when ambiguous targets are labeled with biracial categories and (b) reinforces essentialism when ambiguous targets identify with monoracial categories. The results showed that White perceivers (N = 84) who were exposed to racially ambiguous, biracially labeled targets showed reductions in their essentialist thinking about race, whereas perceivers who were exposed to racially ambiguous, monoracially labeled targets showed increases in their essentialist beliefs.

The present studies examined whether colorblind diversity messages, relative to multicultural diversity messages, serve as an identity threat that undermines performance-related outcomes for individuals at the intersections of race and gender. We exposed racial/ethnic majority and minority women and men to either a colorblind or multicultural diversity statement and then measured their expectations about overall diversity, anticipated bias, and group task performance (Study 1, N = 211), as well as their expectations about distinct race and gender diversity and their actual performance on a math test (Study 2, N = 328). Participants expected more bias (Study 1) and less race and gender diversity (Study 2) after exposure to a colorblind versus a multicultural message. However, the colorblind message was particularly damaging for women of color, prompting them to expect the least diversity overall and to perform worse (Study 1), as well as to actually perform worse on a math test (Study 2) than the multicultural message. White women demonstrated the opposite pattern, performing better on the math test in the colorblind versus the multicultural condition, whereas racial minority and majority men's performances were not affected by different messages about diversity. We discuss the importance of examining psychological processes that underscore performance-related outcomes at the junction of race and gender.

A substantial body of research on diversity philosophies has shown that multiculturalism (i.e., emphasizing and valuing cultural/ethnic differences) is a more effective way to promote equality and reduce bias than color blindness (i.e., deemphasizing cultural/ethnic differences in lieu of similarities). However, across two experiments, we present evidence for an unexpectedly negative outcome of multiculturalism: increased belief in race essentialism, or the notion that racial group differences are valid, biologically based, and immutable. Study 1 (N = 165) shows that participants exposed to multiculturalism expressed greater race essentialist beliefs compared to those exposed to color blindness. Study 2 (N = 150) replicates this effect and also finds that exposure to multiculturalism, compared to color blindness, decreased participants’ belief that racial equality is a problem. These findings raise the ironic possibility that well-intentioned efforts to portray the value of differences may reinforce the belief that fixed, biological characteristics underpin them.