uncommon sense Why Doesn't Diversity Training Work?

48 anthropology Volume 10 • Number 2 • September 2018

uncommon sense

ISSN: 1942-8200 print / 1949-2901 online • https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2018.1493182

Why Doesn’t Diversity

Training Work?

The Challenge for Industry

andAcademia

Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev

tarbucks’ decision to put 175,000 work-

ers through diversity training on May 29,

in the wake of the widely publicized arrest

of two black men in a Philadelphia store,

put diversity training back in the news. But

corporations and universities have been do-

ing diversity training for decades. Nearly

all Fortune 500 companies do training, and

two-thirds of colleges and universities have

training for faculty according to our 2016

survey of 670 schools. Most also put fresh-

men through some sort of diversity session

as part of orientation. Yet hundreds of studies

dating back to the 1930s suggest that antibias

training does not reduce bias, alter behavior

or change the workplace.

We have been speaking to employers

about this research for more than a decade,

with the message that diversity training is

likely the most expensive, and least eec-

tive, diversity program around. But they per-

sist, worried about the optics of getting rid of

training, concerned about litigation, unwill-

ing to take more dicult but consequential

steps or simply in the thrall of glossy training

materials and their purveyors. That colleges

and universities in the United States persist

in oering training to faculty and students,

and even mandate it (29% of all schools

require faculty to undergo training), is par-

ticularly surprising given that the research on

the poor performance of training comes out

of academia. Imagine university health cen-

ters continuing to prescribe vitamin C for the

common cold.

Corporate antibias training was stimu-

lated by the civil rights movement of the

1950s and 1960s and legal reforms that

movement brought about. Federal agen-

cies took the lead, and by the end of 1971,

the Social Security Administration had put

50,000 staers through racial bias training.

By 1976, 60 percent of big companies of-

fered equal-opportunity training. In the

1980s, as Reagan tried to tear down ar-

mative action regulations and appointed

Clarence Thomas to run the Equal Employ-

ment Opportunity Commission, trainers be-

gan to make a business case for what they

called “diversity training.” They argued that

women and minorities would soon be the

backbone of the workforce and that em-

ployers needed to gure out how to better

incorporate them. By 2005, 65 percent of

large rms oered diversity training. Con-

sultants have heralded training as essential

for increasing diversity, corporate counsel

have advised that it is vital for fending o

Yet hundreds of studies dating back

to the 1930s suggest that anti-bias

training doesn’t reduce bias, alter

behavior, or change the workplace.

Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev The Trouble with Diversity Training 49

lawsuits and plaintis have asked for it in

most discrimination settlements.

Yet two-thirds of human resources spe-

cialists report that diversity training does not

have positive eects, and several eld studies

have found no eect of diversity training on

women’s or minorities’ careers or on mana-

gerial diversity.

These ndings are not sur-

prising. There is ample evidence that training

alone does not change attitudes or behavior,

or not by much and not for long. In their re-

view of 985 studies of antibias interventions,

Paluck and Green found little evidence that

training reduces bias. In their review of 31

organizational studies using pretest/posttest

assessments or a control group, Kulik and

Roberson identied 27 that documented im-

proved knowledge of, or attitudes toward,

diversity, but most found small, short-term

improvements on one or two of the items

measured. In their review of 39 similar stud-

ies, Bezrukova, Joshi and Jehn identied only

ve that examined long-term eects on bias,

two showing positive eects, two negative,

and one no eect.

A number of recent studies of antibias

training used the implicit association test

(IAT) before and after to assess whether un-

conscious bias can be aected by training.

A meta-analysis of 426 studies found weak

immediate eects on unconscious bias and

weaker eects on explicit bias. A side-by-

side test of 17 interventions to reduce white

bias toward blacks found that eight reduced

unconscious bias, but in a follow-up exam-

ining eight implicit bias interventions and

one sham, all nine worked, suggesting that

subjects may have learned how to game

the bias test.

Eects dissipated within a

fewdays.

Most of these studies look at interven-

tions that mirror corporate and university

training in intensity and duration. One im-

portant study by Patricia Devine and col-

leagues suggests that a more extensive cur-

riculum, based in strategies proven eective

in the lab, can reduce measured bias.

That

12-week intervention, which took the form

of a college course and included a control

group, worked best for people who were

concerned about discrimination and who

did the exercises — best when preaching

to the converted. We do not see employers

jumping on this costly bandwagon. Con-

sider Starbucks, which closed 8,000 stores

for half a day to train 175,000 workers, at

an estimated cost of $12 million in lost busi-

ness alone. Starbucks hires 100,000 new

workers each year, and to match the Devine

intervention they would need a dozen half-

day sessions, every year, for more than half

the workforce. Unlikely they would go that

far, even if the logistics of scaling a class-

room intervention to 100,000 people could

be worked out.

Despite the poor showing of antibias train-

ing in academic studies, it remains the go-to

solution for corporate executives and univer-

sity administrators facing public relations cri-

ses, campus intolerance and slow progress on

diversifying the executive and faculty ranks.

Why is diversity training not more eective?

If we can answer that question, perhaps we

can x it. Five dierent lines of research sug-

gest why it may fail.

First, short-term educational interventions

in general do not change people. This should

come as no surprise to anthropologists. De-

cades of research on workplace training of all

sorts suggests that by itself, training does not

50 anthropology Volume 10 • Number 2 • September 2018

do much. Take workplace safety and health

training which, it stands to reason, employ-

ees have an interest in paying attention to.

Alone, it does little to change attitudes or be-

havior. If you cannot train workers to attach

the straps on their hard hats, it may be well-

nigh impossible to get them to give up biases

that they have acquired over a lifetime of me-

dia exposure and real-world experience.

Second, some have argued that antib-

ias training activates stereotypes. Field and

laboratory studies nd that asking people to

suppress stereotypes tends to reinforce them

— making them more cognitively accessible

to people.

Try not thinking about elephants.

Diversity training typically encourages peo-

ple to recognize and ght the stereotypes

they hold, and this may simply be counter-

productive.

Third, recent research suggests that train-

ing inspires unrealistic condence in anti-

discrimination programs, making employees

complacent about their own biases. In the

lab, Castilla and Benard found that when

experimenters described subjects’ employ-

ers as nondiscriminatory, subjects did not

censor their own gender biases.

Employees

who go through diversity training may not,

subsequently, take responsibility for avoid-

ing discrimination. Kaiser and colleagues

found that when subjects are told that their

employers have prodiversity measures such

as training, they presume that the workplace

is free of bias and react harshly to claims of

discrimination.

More generally, in experi-

ments, the presence of workplace diversity

programs seems to blind employees to hard

evidence of discrimination.

Fourth, others nd that training leaves

whites feeling left out. Plaut and colleagues

found the message of multiculturalism,

which is common in training, makes whites

feel excluded and reduces their support for

diversity, relative to the message of color-

blindness, which is rare these days. Whites

generally feel they will not be treated fairly

in workplaces with prodiversity messages.

Perhaps this is why trainers frequently report

hostility and resistance, and trainees often

leave “confused, angry, or with more ani-

mosity toward” other groups.

The trouble is,

when African-Americans work with whites

who take a color-blind stance (rather than a

multicultural stance), it alienates them, re-

ducing their psychological engagement at

work and quite possibly reducing their likeli-

hood of staying on.

So perhaps trainers can-

not win with a message of either multicultur-

alism or color-blindness.

Fifth, we know from a large body of or-

ganizational research that people react

negatively to eorts to control them. Job-

autonomy research nds that people resist

external controls on their thoughts and be-

havior and perform poorly in their jobs when

they lack autonomy. Self-determination re-

search shows that when organizations frame

motivation for pursuing a goal as originating

internally, commitment rises, but when they

frame motivation as originating externally, re-

bellion increases. Legault, Gutsell and Inzli-

cht found this to be true in the case of anti-

bias training. Kidder and colleagues showed

that when diversity programs are introduced

with an external rationale — avoiding law-

suit — participants were more resistant than

when they were introduced with an organi-

zational rationale — management needs. In

experiments, whites resented external pres-

sure to control prejudice against blacks, and

Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev The Trouble with Diversity Training 51

when experimenters asked people to reduce

bias, they responded by increasing bias un-

less they saw the desire to control prejudice

as voluntary.

Thus Robin Ely and David

Thomas found that a discrimination/fairness

framing of diversity eorts, which evokes le-

gal motives, is less eective than an integra-

tion/learning framing that evokes business

motives.

What is a university administrator or cor-

porate executive to do? Some researchers

suggest remedies. On the one hand, they

have addressed problematic features of train-

ing. On the other, they address evidence that

training tends not to change workplaces un-

less it is part of a broader eort, involving

multiple components.

First, can we prevent antibias training

from reinforcing stereotypes, rather than

suppressing them? Devine and colleagues

ask their trainees to practice behaviors that

increase contact with members of other

groups, and empathy for other groups —

these behavioral changes appear to be part

of the secret to avoiding the reinforcement

of stereotypes. Second, can we prevent

training from making managers complacent

because they believe that the organization

has handled the problem of discrimination?

One possibility would be to introduce the

“moral licensing” literature as part of train-

ing.

It suggests that when people do some-

thing good (e.g., attend training) they are

likely to feel licensed to do something bad

afterward (e.g., discriminate in hiring). This

might equip trainees to look out for the ef-

fect in their own behavior.

Third, can we prevent antibias train-

ing about multiculturalism from making

whites and men feel excluded and eliciting

backlash? Plaut and colleagues found that

when multicultural curriculum was framed

as inclusive of the majority culture, ma-

jority group members responded better.

Perhaps the curriculum should emphasize

multiculturalism but stress that the majority

culture is an important part of that multi-

culturalism.

Fourth, can we prevent trainees from feel-

ing that training is an eort to control their

thoughts and actions, and from rebelling

against the message? Legault and colleagues

found that by manipulating the framing of

training, trainers can inuence whether train-

ees see it as externally imposed or voluntarily

chosen.

We expect that two common fea-

tures of diversity training — mandatory par-

ticipation and legal curriculum — will make

participants feel that an external power is

trying to control their behavior. By mandat-

ing participation, employers send the mes-

sage that employees need to change, and the

employer will require it. By emphasizing the

law, employers send the message that exter-

nal government mandates are behind train-

ing. These features may lead employees to

think that commitment to diversity is being

coerced.

We expect that two common

features of diversity training

— mandatory participation and

legal curriculum — will make

participants feel that an external

power is trying to control their

behavior.

52 anthropology Volume 10 • Number 2 • September 2018

Our surveys show that 80% of corpora-

tions with diversity training make it manda-

tory, and 43% of colleges and universities

with training for faculty make it mandatory.

Employers mandate training in the belief that

people hostile to the message will not attend

voluntarily, but if we are right, forcing them

to come will do more harm than good.

About 75 percent of company trainings cover

regulations and procedures to comply with

them — the legal case for diversity — as do

about 40 percent of university trainings. Per-

haps employers should cut the legal content

and make training voluntary, or give employ-

ees a choice of dierent types of diversity

training.

This begs a bigger question: if employers

could design a diversity course that reduced

bias, would it reduce workplace discrimina-

tion? There is reason to believe that it would

not. A recent meta-analysis suggests that

change in unconscious bias does not lead

to change in discrimination. Discrimination

may result from habits of mind and behav-

ior, or organizational practices, that are not

rooted in unconscious bias alone.

This rein-

forces the view that employers cannot expect

training to change the workplace without

making other changes.

The key to improving the eects of train-

ing is to make it part of a wider program of

change. That is what studies of workplace

training in other domains, such as health and

safety, have proven. In isolation, diversity

training does not appear to be eective, and

in many corporations, colleges and univer-

sities, training was for many years the only

diversity program in place. But large corpo-

rations and big universities are developing

multipronged diversity initiatives that tackle

not only implicit biases, but structural dis-

crimination. The trick is to couple diversity

training with the right complementary mea-

sures. Our research shows that companies

most often couple it with the wrong comple-

mentary measures.

The antidiscrimination

measures that work best are those that en-

gage decision makers in solving the prob-

lem themselves.

We nd that special college recruitment

programs to identify women and minorities

— sending existing corporate managers out

to nd new recruits — increase managerial

diversity markedly. So do formal mentor-

ing programs, which pair existing managers

with people a couple of rungs below them,

in dierent departments, who seek mentor-

ing and sponsorship. So do diversity task

forces that bring together higher-ups in dif-

ferent departments to look at the data on hir-

ing, retention, pay and promotion; identify

problems; brainstorm for solutions and bring

those back to their departments. So do man-

agement training programs that use existing

managers to train aspiring managers. All of

these programs put existing higher-ups in

touch with people from dierent race/ethnic/

gender groups who hope to move up. All of

them help existing managers to understand

the contours of the problem. And all of them

seem to turn existing managers into champi-

ons of diversity.

The key to improving the eects

of training is to make it part of a

wider program of change.

Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev The Trouble with Diversity Training 53

By contrast, popular human resources

policies thought to reduce discrimination

and promote diversity by controlling mana-

gerial bias seem to backre.

Companies

that establish formal hiring and promotion

criteria — through job tests and perfor-

mance rating systems — to limit managerial

discrimination see reductions in managerial

diversity. Formal civil rights grievance pro-

cedures, which give employees a means to

pursue complaints of discrimination, also

backre because managers nd them threat-

ening. Our statistical analyses show that di-

versity training can improve the eects of

certain diversity programs, but employers

have to complement training with the right

programs — those that engage rather than

alienate managers.

Starbucks got mixed press coverage for

its mass diversity training event, with some

experts, such as University of Virginia psy-

chologist Brian Nosek, expressing skepti-

cism that that particular quick x would

x anything.

But Starbucks says that this

is the rst volley in what they expect to be

a long game. To their credit, Starbucks has

tried to address racial bias before, with its

2015 campaign encouraging baristas to

write “Race Together” on customers’ coee

cups, as a conversation starter. Starbucks

pulled the plug on that campaign after a

couple of shots of media criticism and a

dollop of ridicule. Starbucks faces much

the same challenge that university adminis-

trators face: what to do in an age in which

diversity in executive and faculty ranks has

been at a standstill for decades? Social sci-

ence research now gives us a pretty good

idea of what does not work and what re-

mains promising.

Notes

1. Frank Dobbin, Inventing Equal Opportunity

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).

2. Sara Rynes and Benson Rosen, “A Field

Survey of Factors Aecting the Adoption and Per-

ceived Success of Diversity Training,” Personnel

Psychology 48, no. 2 (1995); J. Edward Kellough

and Katherine C. Na, “Responding to a Wake-up

Call: An Examination of Federal Agency Diversity

Management Programs,” Administration & Society

36 (2004); Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin and

Erin Kelly, “Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assess-

ing the Ecacy of Corporate Armative Action

and Diversity Policies,” American Sociological Re-

view 71, no. 4 (2006); Frank Dobbin, Alexandra

Kalev and Erin Kelly, “Diversity Management in

Corporate America,” Contexts 6 (2007).

3. Elizabeth L. Paluck and Donald P. Green,

“Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Critical

Look at Evidence from the Field and the Labora-

tory,” Annual Review of Psychology 60 (2009);

Carol T. Kulik and Loriann Roberson, “Common

Goals and Golden Opportunities: Evaluations of

Diversity Education in Academic and Organiza-

tional Settings,” Academy of Management Learn-

ing and Education 7 (2008); Katerina Bezrukova,

Aparna Joshi and Karen A. Jehn, “Can We Teach

Diversity? A Review of Diversity Trainings in Edu-

cational and Organizational Settings,” (2008),

Working Paper, Psychology Department, Santa

Clara University.

4. Patrick S. Forscher et al., “A Meta-Analy-

sis of Procedures to Change Implicit Measures,”

PsyArXiv (2018); Calvin K. Lai et al., “Reducing

Implicit Racial Preferences: II. Intervention Eec-

tiveness across Time,” Journal of Experimental Psy-

chology 145, no. 8 (2016): 1001–16.

5. Patricia G. Devine, Patrick S. Forscher, An-

thony J. Austin and William T.L. Cox, “Long-Term

Reduction in Implicit Race Bias: A Prejudice

Habit-Breaking Intervention,” Journal of Experi-

mental Social Psychology 48, no. 6 (2012).

54 anthropology Volume 10 • Number 2 • September 2018

6. Mary Lou Egan and Marc Bendick, Jr.,

“Combining Multicultural Management and Di-

versity into One Course on Cultural Competence,”

Academy of Management Learning & Education 7

(2008); Adam D. Galinsky and Gordon B. Mos-

kowitz, “Perspective Taking: Decreasing Stereo-

type Expression, Stereotype Accessibility, and

in-Group Favoritism,” Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology 78 (2000); C. Neil Macrae, Ga-

len V. Bodenhausen, Alan B. Milne and Jolanda

Jetten, “Out of Mind but Back in Sight: Stereotypes

on the Rebound,” Journal of Personality and So-

cial Psychology 67 (1994); Carol T. Kulik, Elissa L.

Perry and Anne C. Bourhis, “Ironic Evaluation Pro-

cesses: Eects of Thought Suppression on Evalua-

tions of Older Job Applicants,” Journal of Organi-

zational Behavior 24 (2000).

7. Emilio J. Castilla and Stephen Benard, “The

Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations,” Admin-

istrative Science Quarterly 55, no. 4 (2010).

8. Cheryl R. Kaiser, Brenda Major, Ines Ju-

rcevic, Tessa L. Dover, Laura M. Brady and Jenessa

R. Shapiro, “Presumed Fair: Ironic Eects of Or-

ganizational Diversity Structures,” Journal of Per-

sonality and Social Psychology 104, no. 3 (2013).

9. Laura M. Brady, Cheryl R. Kaiser, Brenda

Major and Teri A. Kirby, “It’s Fair for Us: Diversity

Structures Cause Women to Legitimize Discrimi-

nation,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

57 (2015).

10. Victoria C. Plaut, Flannery G. Garnett,

Laura E. Buardi and Jerey Sanchez-Burks,

‘“What About Me?’ Perceptions of Exclusion and

Whites’ Reactions to Multiculturalism,” Journal

of Personality and Social Psychology 101, no. 2

(2011); Tessa L. Dover, Brenda Major and Cheryl

R. Kaiser, “Members of High-Status Groups Are

Threatened by Pro-Diversity Organizational Mes-

sages,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

62 (2016).

11. Carol T. Kulik, Molly B. Pepper, Loriann

Roberson and Sharon K. Parker, “The Rich Get

Richer: Predicting Participation in Voluntary Diver-

sity Training,” Journal of Organizational Behavior

28 (2007); Rohini Anand and Mary-Frances Win-

ters, “A Retrospective View of Corporate Diversity

Training from 1964 to the Present,” Academy of

Management Learning & Education 7 (2008).

12. Victoria C. Plaut, Kecia M. Thomas and

Matt J. Goren, “Is Multiculturalism or Color Blind-

ness Better for Minorities?” Psychological Science

20, no. 4 (2009).

13. Lisa Legault, Jennifer N. Gutsell and Mi-

chael Inzlicht, “Ironic Eects of Antiprejudice

Messages: How Motivational Interventions Can

Reduce (but Also Increase) Prejudice,” Psycho-

logical Science 22 (2011); Deborah L. Kidder,

Melenie J. Lankau, Donna Chrobot-Mason, Kelly

A. Mollica and Raymond A. Friedman, “Backlash

toward Diversity Initiatives: Examining the Im-

pact of Diversity Program Justication, Personal

and Group Outcomes,” International Journal of

Conict Management 15, no. 1 (2004); Patricia

G. Devine etal., “The Regulation of Explicit and

Implicit Race Bias: The Role of Motivations to Re-

spond without Prejudice,” Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology 82 (2002).

14. Robin J. Ely and David A. Thomas, “Cul-

tural Diversity at Work: The Eects of Diversity

Perspectives on Work Group Processes and Out-

comes,” Administative Science Quarterly 46, no.

2 (2001).

15. Eric Luis Uhlmann and Georey L. Cohen,

‘“I Think It, Therefore It’s True’: Eects of Self-Per-

ceived Objectivity on Hiring Discrimination,” Or-

ganizational Behavior and Human Decision Pro-

cesses 104, no. 2 (2007); Benoit Monin and Dale

T. Miller, “Moral Credentials and the Expression of

Prejudice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psy-

chology 81, no. 1 (2001).

16. Plaut, ‘“What About Me?’”

17. Lisa Legault, Isabelle Green-Demers, Pro-

tius Grant and Joyce Chung, “On the Self-Regula-

tion of Implicit and Explicit Prejudice: A Self-De-

termination Perspective,” Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin 33 (2007).

Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev The Trouble with Diversity Training 55

18. Legault et al., “On the Self-Regulation of

Implicit and Explicit Prejudice”; Yogesh Malhotra,

Dennis F. Galletta and Laurie J. Kirsch, “How En-

dogenous Motivations Inuence User Intentions:

Beyond the Dichotomy of Extrinsic and Intrinsic

User Motivations,” Journal of Management Infor-

mation Systems 25, no. 1 (2008).

19. Kulik etal., “The Rich Get Richer.”

20. Forscher etal., “A Meta-Analysis of Proce-

dures”; John F. Dovidio, “Reducing Prejudice May

Not Be Eective for Reducing Discrimination: Al-

ternative Social Psychological Approaches” (pre-

sentation, “What Works to Reduce Discrimina-

tion” Conference, Radclie Institute for Advanced

Study at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA,

April 20, 2018).

21. Frank Dobbin, Daniel Schrage and Alex-

andra Kalev, “Rage against the Iron Cage: The Var-

ied Eects of Bureaucratic Personnel Reforms on

Diversity,” American Sociological Review 80, no.

5 (2015): 1014–44; Frank Dobbin and Alexandra

Kalev, “Why Diversity Programs Fail,” Harvard

Business Review 94, no. 7 (2016).

22. Dobbin, Schrage and Kalev, “Rage against

the Iron Cage.”

23. Rachel Abrams, Tiany Hsu and John Eli-

gon, “Starbucks’s Tall Order: Tackle Systemic Rac-

ism in 4 Hours,” New York Times, May 29, 2018.

Frank Dobbin is professor of sociology at Harvard.

Alexandra Kalev is associate professor of sociol-

ogy and anthropology at Tel Aviv University.