From high compensation to perceived representation: Exposure to successful women and racial minorities who defy stereotypes about their groups inflates perceptions of diversity in organizations

Abstract: Historically underrepresented minority employees who defy negative stereotypes bring about widespread organizational benefits. Successful women and racial minority employees can reduce stereotypes, set a precedent for more inclusive norms, and create role models. Yet, defying stereotypes also make these employees particularly salient, as their success in organizations conflicts with stereotyped expectations regarding their career outcomes. By integrating insights from the Stereotype Content Model and the process of attribute substitution from Dual Process Theory, we argue that the salience of successful minority employees can ironically have secondary, negative consequences for their social groups. Specifically, we propose that their presence can lead to inflated diversity perceptions which, in turn, can hinder efforts to advance the interests of minority groups. We test our predictions across three pre-registered experiments and a study that combines real gender diversity and gender pay gap data from organizations in the United Kingdom with experimental data on diversity perceptions.

Keywords: Inequality, Diversity Perceptions, Gender Diversity, Racial Diversity