Passion is key: High emotionality in diversity statements promotes organizational attractiveness

Abstract

To attract and retain a more diverse workforce, organizations embrace diversity initiatives, expressed in diversity statements on their websites. While the explicit content of diversity statements influences attitudes towards organizations, much less is known about the effect of subtle cues such as emotions. In three pre‐registered studies, we tested the effect of positive emotionality in diversity statements on attitudes towards organizations. Study 1 focused on the degree to which 600 European organizations employed emotionality in their diversity statements, finding that although their statements differed in the level of emotionality, on average, organizations avoided highly emotional words. Study 2 (N = 220 UK participants) tested the effect of original diversity statements on readers' attitudes towards an organization, demonstrating that the level of emotionality in the existing statements did not influence positive attitudes towards the organization. In Study 3 (N = 815 UK participants), we thus modified the diversity statements so that they contained high levels of positive emotionality that triggered more positive emotions and resulted in more positive attitudes towards an organization. Taken together, highly emotional words (e.g. passionate; happy; wholeheartedly) are key in diversity statements if organizations wish to increase their attractiveness among potential employees.