Department of Operations, Information, & Decisions, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104;
Department of Operations, Information, & Decisions, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Apr 16;116(16):7778-7783. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1816076116. Epub 2019 Apr 1.
We present results from a large ( = 3,016) field experiment at a global organization testing whether a brief science-based online diversity training can change attitudes and behaviors toward women in the workplace. Our preregistered field experiment included an active placebo control and measured participants' attitudes and real workplace decisions up to 20 weeks postintervention. Among groups whose average untreated attitudes-whereas still supportive of women-were relatively less supportive of women than other groups, our diversity training successfully produced attitude change but not behavior change. On the other hand, our diversity training successfully generated some behavior change among groups whose average untreated attitudes were already strongly supportive of women before training. This paper extends our knowledge about the pathways to attitude and behavior change in the context of bias reduction. However, the results suggest that the one-off diversity trainings that are commonplace in organizations are unlikely to be stand-alone solutions for promoting equality in the workplace, particularly given their limited efficacy among those groups whose behaviors policymakers are most eager to influence.
我们呈现了一项在全球组织中进行的大规模（=3016）现场实验的结果，该实验旨在测试简短的基于科学的在线多样性培训是否可以改变工作场所中对女性的态度和行为。我们的预先注册现场实验包括一个积极的安慰剂对照，并在干预后长达 20 周测量参与者的态度和真实的工作场所决策。在平均未经治疗的态度——尽管仍然支持女性——相对不如其他群体支持女性的群体中，我们的多样性培训成功地产生了态度变化，但没有产生行为变化。另一方面，我们的多样性培训在培训前已经对女性持强烈支持态度的群体中成功地产生了一些行为变化。本文扩展了我们在减少偏见背景下关于态度和行为变化途径的知识。然而，结果表明，组织中常见的一次性多样性培训不太可能是促进工作场所平等的独立解决方案，特别是考虑到它们在那些行为政策制定者最渴望影响的群体中的效果有限。
