The Failure To Recognize Anti-Asian Discrimination At Work

Authors:

Abstract: Anti-Asian discrimination remains prevalent in the United States, yet continues to be reported and charged at low levels. In the current work, we seek to understand this puzzle in the context of hiring discrimination. Conceptualizing Asian Americans as an intermediate status group simultaneously subject to racial advantages and disadvantages (O’Brien, 2008), we integrate the deontic model of justice and the prototype model of attributions to discrimination to propose that observers often fail to recognize instances of anti-Asian discrimination as discrimination. Specifically, we hypothesize that observers are less likely to attribute the rejection of an Asian (compared to a Black) job candidate to discrimination and perceive the rejection as more just, because observers are less likely to think of Asian Americans as typical targets of racism. We further theorize that perceived justice is associated with important downstream consequences such as justice advocacy intentions and bias training recommendations. We find evidence of our predictions in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discrimination charges (Pilot A), a qualitative study (Pilot B), and three experiments (Studies 1-3). We make theoretical advances on the racial experience of Asian employees, and identify the failure to attribute discrimination as a unique problem that likely perpetuates anti-Asian racism at work.

Track: DEI

Keywords: Asian Americans, Discrimination, Racism, Attributions to discrimination