Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: An Experimental Study of Diversity Management Techniques

该项目的目标是帮助公共政策减少与族裔多样性有关的社会问题。大量证据表明，族裔多样性破坏了群体、社区和社会采取集体和合作行动的能力。然而，令人惊讶的是，对可能支持种族间合作的战略知之甚少。本研究使用实验方法来评估两种减少组间偏见和促进合作的策略：自我分类（SC）策略，主张构建统一的上级身份，以最大限度地减少组内差异的显着性（例如，基于团队，国家），和自我验证（SV）的战略，提出了跨组的信念，承认多样性的巨大价值的建设。SC和SV的方法已被证明是合理的多样性管理策略的经验和实验。但现有的研究有三个局限性。第一，除了少数例外，几乎所有确定SC或SV的积极影响的实验都依赖于由美国学生组成的便利样本，因此不清楚这些策略在具有更深和更强烈分裂的人群中的表现如何。第二，大多数关于SV的研究是定性的或基于调查研究，并且没有令人信服地控制可能影响SV和群体生产力的因素。换句话说，SV是否对群体生产率有因果影响是不确定的。第三，没有研究直接比较SC和SV方法在控制良好的环境中的相对有效性，因此不清楚在现实世界中更喜欢哪种策略。为了取得科学的进步，本研究使用了现场实验组生产力和合作测试的个人，相对的，并结合SC和SV方法的多样性的功效。在实验中，一个不同种族的参与者样本被招募参加一个解决问题的比赛，以获得一大笔现金奖励。参与者被分成三组进行比赛，并且随机选择组以接受SC引发剂、SV引发剂、SC和SV引发剂两者或两者都不接受（纯对照）。在这些不同的治疗方法下，参与者尝试了一系列由行为经济学家和社会心理学家设计的激励性难题和合作任务，以研究群体生产力和合作的各个方面。结果进行比较，然后在两个跨领域的治疗，以评估个人，相对的，和合并的SC和SV的strategies.This研究具有实际意义，在世界上日益增长的经济和文化融合，群体和社会不仅越来越多样化，但也担心其潜在的产生社会冲突。这就是为什么实验将在肯尼亚的内罗毕进行，那里的多样性似乎正在破坏半个世纪令人印象深刻的经济发展，即将发生的暴力事件将威胁到美国在该地区的利益。在肯尼亚和其他地方，许多公共和私营组织都试图通过成为“色盲”和建立强有力的组织规范来尽量减少多样性的代价，以鼓励平等对待所有个人，无论其背景如何。民族国家也同样诉诸集体的民族认同，作为缓解国内种族分裂的战略。然而，尚不清楚这种向同质性的趋同有多有效，甚至有多可取。本研究探讨了多样性的成本和收益之间的这种紧张关系，并试图为我们对种族和文化细分的群体，组织，社区和社会的方法提供信息。

The goal of this project is to help public policy in reducing the social problems that are associated with ethnic diversity. Considerable evidence reveals that ethnic diversity undermines the ability of groups, communities, and societies to act collectively and cooperatively. However, surprisingly little is known about the strategies that might support interethnic cooperation. This research uses experimental methods to evaluate two strategies for reducing intergroup biases and promoting cooperation: a self-categorization (SC) strategy that advocates the construction of unifying superordinate identities to minimize the salience of in-group differences (e.g., based on team, nation), and a self-verification (SV) strategy that proposes the construction of intergroup beliefs that acknowledge the tremendous value of diversity.Both the SC and SV approaches have been shown empirically and experimentally to be plausible diversity management strategies. But there are three limitations to existing research. The first is that, with few exceptions, virtually all experiments that identify positive effects from SC or SV rely on convenience samples consisting of American students, making it unclear how these strategies would fare in populations with deeper and more intense divisions. Second, most research on SV is qualitative or based on survey research, and does not convincingly control for factors that might affect both SV and group productivity. In other words, there is uncertainty as to whether SV has a causal impact on group productivity. And third, no studies compare directly the relative efficacies of the SC and SV approaches in a well-controlled setting, making it unclear which strategy to prefer in real-world settings. To make a scientific advance, this research uses a field experiment in group productivity and cooperation to test the individual, relative, and combined efficacies of the SC and SV approaches to diversity. In the experiment, an ethnically diverse sample of participants is recruited to participate in a problem-solving competition for a large cash prize. Participants are divided into groups of three for the competition, and groups are randomly selected to receive an SC prime, an SV prime, both SC and SV primes, or neither (pure control). Under these different treatments, participants attempt a series of incentivized puzzles and cooperative tasks designed by behavioral economists and social psychologists to study various aspects of group productivity and cooperation. Outcomes are then compared across the two cross-cutting treatments to evaluate the individual, relative, and combined efficacies of the SC and SV strategies.This research has practical implications in a world of increasing economic and cultural integration, where groups and societies are not only getting more diverse, but also fearful of its potential for generating social conflict. This is the reason the experiment will be conducted in Nairobi, Kenya where diversity appears to be undermining a half-century of impressive economic development, with imminent violence that would have been a threat to American interests in the region. Many public and private organizations, in Kenya and elsewhere, have tried to minimize the costs of diversity by becoming "colorblind" and creating strong organizational norms to encourage equal treatment of all individuals regardless of background. Nation-states have similarly resorted to appeals to a collective, national identity as a strategy for alleviating intense interethnic cleavages domestically. Yet it is not clear how effective or even desirable such convergence to homogeneity is. This research explores this tension between the costs and benefits of diversity, and attempts to inform our approaches to ethnically and culturally fractionalized groups, organizations, communities, and societies.