Chapter 7: VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE?: Theoretical Perspectives
on Diversity and Exclusion in the Workplace
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. The concept of inclusion-exclusion in the workplace refers to ______.
2. What is the distinction between inclusion-exclusion and organizational involvement?
3. In which political tradition does the high-involvement approach work better?
4. In the high-involvement approach to management where is the power pushed to?
5. More often, the experience of exclusion is ______?
6. Employees who experience inclusion are also likely to ______.
7. The intersectionality of diversity distinction categories leads to individuals with these characteristics
having more experiences of exclusion. How has that impacted ethnic minority women?
8. Social psychological theories regarding diversity have largely been developed in which regions of the
world?
9. ______ scholars and the few scholars from other countries who have published on workforce diversity
usually identified their work under titles such as gender studies, demography of the workforce, labor
migration, and guest workers.
10. One of the most significant problems facing today’s diverse workforce is that of ______.
11. Inclusion in organizational information networks and in decision-making processes has been linked to
better ______.
12. European scholars who develop social psychological theories of diversity often categorize their work
under which titles?
13. North American and European researchers have focused on different distinction categories of
diversity. What is the reason for the difference in focus?
14. Social psychological theories regarding diversity, social identity, and intergroup relations have been
developed primarily in two locations: Western Europe and ______.
15. Which type of theory serves as a broad lens for thinking about the inclusion-exclusion construct?
16. Social identity theory and social comparison theory are both which type of theories?
17. Which theory supports the idea that stereotypes are ubiquitous and racism is an everyday experience
for people of color ?
18. Which theory rejects the idea that social problems can be broken down into separate issues that only
affect specific identity groups?
19. If you wanted to know the answer to why there are conflicts between groups in the workplace, which
type theory would you refer to?
20. ______ is the process people use to evaluate themselves by comparing their group’s members with
other groups.
21. The Binocular Resolution Classical Experiments of Racial Categorization in South Africa: Prestige of
Groups, Identification, and Exclusion demonstrates that when people classify others into social
categories, ______.
22. The Classical Minimal Group Experiment study demonstrated that although the groups were based on
a meaningless classification and members had no contact with each other, they still showed preference
for the ______.
23. When faced with negative or threatened social identity, which strategy might individuals use?
24. If you are in the in-group, what type of people do you typically exclude from your group?
25. What factor is likely to influence our own social categorization and attitudes toward others?
26. In studies using the binocular resolution experimentation approach, which group is more cautious in
assigning racial categories in an effort to preserve in-group and out-group distinctions?
27. Racial and ethnic identification no longer falls along the lines used by social institutions in the past.
What has caused this shift in categorization?
28. According to social identity theory what are the two components of identity?
29. When people evaluate themselves by comparing their group’s membership with other groups, what
process are they engaging in?
30. Geert Hofstede (1997) warns that intercultural encounters among groups do not automatically breed
______.
31. Comparing yourself to relevant others in your organization can influence how fair you think your
organization is in terms of outcomes, procedures, and ______.
32. The ______ is an individual’s self-esteem which acts as a personal indicator that allows people to
monitor inclusion or exclusion reactions toward them from their environment.
33. The social comparison process, as delineated by Festinger, postulates that individuals have the need
to evaluate themselves and to assess their relative standing within ______.
34. Research demonstrates that social and physical pain share common physiological mechanisms as
______.
35. In an environment that is exclusionary, what behavioral outcomes are likely to be produced when
there are threats to one’s self–esteem?
36. After social exclusion, both an individual’s approach and avoidance systems are activated. When this
happens to high-power people, what are they likely to do?
37. Individuals with which type of cultural orientation are more likely to behave anti-socially after
exclusion?
38. What type of support acts as a buffer against the effects of coworker exclusion?
39. According to Cox’s Interactional Model of Cultural Diversity (IMCD) diversity climate is influenced by
which two individual level pathways?
40. Identity-based motivation theory predicts that small changes in the workplace could have powerful
effects on behavior if the change focuses on ______.
41. What is an economic theory that assumes that people act in self-interest and that conflict is caused by
people’s drive to maximize their own or their group’s rewards to the detriment of other groups’ interests?
42. What theory holds that the root cause for conflict is lack of contact between groups, or contact under
unfavorable conditions, and also holds that contact under optimal conditions (e.g., equal status between
groups; common goals; intergroup coalition; and support of authorities, law, and custom) could reduce
prejudice and intergroup conflict.
43. After years of observing others in leadership do a bad job and mistreat employees, Joe has decided
to become a supervisor. Joe believes that he will be able to insure that people are treated fairly and then
he can reduce the conflict in the workplace. Which theory of intergroup relations explains Joe’s actions?
44. What theory holds that perceptions of inequality between one’s own access to resources and that of
others in the society result in intergroup conflict, and emphasizes the emotional aspects (e.g., anger,
outrage, and grievance) of oppression?
45. What theory emphasizes peoples’ striving for justice and views perceptions of injustice as the cause
for personal distress and intergroup conflict?
46. Organizational demography has been used as a conceptual framework for diversity for ______.
47. Avery, McKay, and Wilson’s (2008) findings indicate that both African Americans and ______ believe
they are more likely to experience race-related discrimination in the workplace than their White
counterparts.
48. The study of organizational demography is useful for examining the relationship between ______ and
exclusion in work organizations.
49. A series of experiments conducted in the middle of the 20th century tested the link associated with
_________ identification, perceptions of group prestige, and social categorization.
50. How does diversity research differ from research on organizational demography?
True/False
1. The concept of inclusion-exclusion does not take into account the employees perceptions about what is
happening in the organization.
2. Research shows that individuals from diverse groups commonly find themselves included in networks
of information and opportunity.
3. The experience of exclusion transcends national boundaries.
4. Inclusion in organizations’ information networks and decision-making processes has been linked to
better job opportunities.
5. Critical race theory has prompted the development of other theoretical branches including LatCrit
theory, Asian critical thought, and queer-crit theory.
6. A key tenet of intersectionality theory is that the combination of identities produces a particular
outcome and that experience may be unacknowledged if the two identities are examined separately.
7. Social identity can be developed either based on one’s perception of oneness within a group, or as the
result of being categorized by larger society as members of a particular group.
8. Social identity is a perception of oneness with a group of persons.
9. Social identity involves a process of self-categorization.
10. Because humans have always depended on others for their basic needs, they are motivated to
maintain connections with significant people and social systems in their lives.
11. Men’s network cohesion with other men is not correlated with women’s limited access to information,
knowledge, and job opportunities.
12. Leadership and management qualities are often defined in masculine terms, perpetuating barriers for
advancement and acceptance of women as managers.
13. In-group members will make an effort to maintain or achieve superiority over an out-group in some
dimensions.
Essay
1. Research indicates that individuals from diverse groups commonly find themselves excluded from
networks of information and opportunity. Based on the research, what are some reasons that diverse
groups feel excluded?
2. Intersectionality theory proposes that each of us has multiple identities that we carry with us and that
these identities combine in a series of complex interactions. How might this affect behavior in the
workplace?
3. What are some limitations of the social identity theory in understanding diversity and exclusion?
4. According to identity-based motivation theory, interpretation of experience difficulty matters. How does
this affect behavior?
5. Compare and contrast the three explanatory theories which address why employees feel excluded in
their workplace. Which one is more salient in today’s work environment. Support your point.