TY - JOUR
T1 - Large-scale field experiment shows null effects of team demographic diversity on outsiders' willingness to support the team
AU - Chang, Edward H.
AU - Kirgios, Erika L.
AU - Smith, Rosanna K.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Katherine Milkman and Jennifer Dannals for their insightful feedback on this work; the Behavior Change for Good team for their invaluable research and organizational support; Joseph Kay, Timothy Lee, Yeji Park, and Alex Rohe for their research support; and the Wharton Behavioral Lab, the Behavior Change for Good Initiative, and the Baker Retailing Center for providing financial support. This material is based upon work supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant DGE-1845298 . The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of these entities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - Demographic diversity in the United States is rising, and increasingly, work is conducted in teams. These co-occurring phenomena suggest that it might be increasingly common for work to be conducted by demographically diverse teams. But to date, in spite of copious field experimental evidence documenting that individuals are treated differently based on their demographic identity, we have little evidence from field experiments to establish how and whether teams are treated differently based on their levels of demographic diversity. To answer this question, we present the results of a preregistered, large-scale (n=9496) field experiment testing whether team demographic diversity affects outsiders' responses to the team. Participants were asked via email to donate money to support the work of a team that was described and depicted as demographically diverse, or not. Even though the study was well-powered to detect even small effects (i.e., differences of less than 1.5 percentage points in donation rates), we found no significant differences in people's willingness to donate to a more diverse versus a less diverse team. We also did not find moderation by participant gender, racial diversity of the participant's zip code, or political leaning of the participant's zip code, suggesting that the lack of a main effect is not due to competing mechanisms cancelling out a main effect. These results suggest past research on the effects of demographic diversity on team support may not generalize to the field, highlighting the need for additional field experimental research on people's responses to demographically diverse teams.
AB - Demographic diversity in the United States is rising, and increasingly, work is conducted in teams. These co-occurring phenomena suggest that it might be increasingly common for work to be conducted by demographically diverse teams. But to date, in spite of copious field experimental evidence documenting that individuals are treated differently based on their demographic identity, we have little evidence from field experiments to establish how and whether teams are treated differently based on their levels of demographic diversity. To answer this question, we present the results of a preregistered, large-scale (n=9496) field experiment testing whether team demographic diversity affects outsiders' responses to the team. Participants were asked via email to donate money to support the work of a team that was described and depicted as demographically diverse, or not. Even though the study was well-powered to detect even small effects (i.e., differences of less than 1.5 percentage points in donation rates), we found no significant differences in people's willingness to donate to a more diverse versus a less diverse team. We also did not find moderation by participant gender, racial diversity of the participant's zip code, or political leaning of the participant's zip code, suggesting that the lack of a main effect is not due to competing mechanisms cancelling out a main effect. These results suggest past research on the effects of demographic diversity on team support may not generalize to the field, highlighting the need for additional field experimental research on people's responses to demographically diverse teams.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104099
DO - 10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104099
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85099647398
SN - 0022-1031
VL - 94
JO - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
M1 - 104099
ER -