Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do Prejudice and Discrimination Arise—and Change?
Use the original design to evaluate the review's account and the difference between attitude and behavior outcomes.
Why you’re reading it. Apply the syllabus's measurement, selection, and institutional distinctions to a practical intervention.
A question to consider. Would you recommend this training as a remedy for unequal promotion? State what it tested and what additional evidence would be necessary.
Why this reading
Training can affect what employees report without changing every workplace decision. This experiment links an online program to later opportunities for mentoring and recognition, making the choice of outcome central to evaluating success.
Before you read
Volunteers in one multinational organization were randomized among two bias-training versions and an active comparison program. An active comparison helps separate the intervention's content from merely receiving training. Attitudes were assessed afterward; the design did not measure each person's attitude change from a pretest.
Read for
- Separate immediate attitude responses from later workplace choices and their different follow-up periods.
- Distinguish overall effects, preregistered subgroup comparisons, and exploratory analyses.
- Examine participation, missing responses, and how opportunities to act were measured.
Consider afterwards
- Would improved survey responses justify claiming fairer promotion decisions? What additional outcome and comparison would you need?
Editorial context
The study recruited 3,016 volunteers from one organization. Several behavioral results were limited or varied across subgroups; the paper is neither a general endorsement nor a rejection of all diversity training. Immediate reports may reflect demand or social desirability. Mentoring and recognition choices matter, but they do not measure every institutional outcome, and voluntary participation limits transfer to mandatory programs.