SBP: CAREER: Organizational diversity management through supportive, skills-focused allyship training

As social and political tensions become increasingly acerbic, the need for support-based interventions against interpersonal prejudice, stigmatization, and discrimination is becoming abundantly clear. Despite a relatively long history of research identifying strategies for reducing interpersonal negativity (e.g., “diversity training”), reports of continued negativity dominate the current headlines.

This project will design and validate a theoretically-developed and empirically supported diversity intervention focused on training employees specific skills to be allies for one another and for marginalized others. Specifically, this project will extend current knowledge and implementation by (a) assessing the effectiveness of this type of training longitudinally to assess long-term impact and (b) developing an online version of the training for broad dissemination.

This project will also include the development of a diversity research group, a summer diversity research institute for undergraduate scholars, and a workshop designed to educate organizational scientists about allyship and diversity research.

The training content is informed by theories related to social identity, bystander intervention processes, social learning, and planned behavior. The training design is informed by theories of learning and contemporary best practices related to learning, retention, information processing, and knowledge transfer. Training modules include lecture-based presentations, video-based role modeling, perspective-taking empathy exercises, and interpersonal skills practice.

The training will address knowledge and skill acquisition, deep levels of cognitive and emotional mental processing, and concrete skill-building to maximize transfer and implementation of the skills learned. This project can transform our understanding of diversity training initiatives by focusing on skill-building rather than on discrimination reduction and by employing systematic longitudinal and multilevel empirical validation.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.