This article discusses how seemingly well-intended policies and interventions to reduce intergroup bias by emphasizing colorblindness through overarching commonalities between groups may, either unintentionally or strategically, inhibit efforts to address group-based inequities. First, we discuss the roots of bias in social categorization process, and how changing the way people think about group memberships from separate groups to members of the same group with shared identity improves intergroup attitudes. Second, we describe the subtle nature of contemporary biases, which can help obscure group-based inequities. Third, we explain how and why majority and minority groups may have different preferences for recategorization and consider the potential consequences of these different perspectives for recognizing and addressing disparity and discrimination. We conclude by considering the policy and structural implications of these processes for achieving more equitable societies, not only in principle but also in practice.
We examine why and when proactive personality is beneficial for innovative behavior at work. Based on a survey among 166 employees working in 35 departments of a large municipality in the Netherlands we show that an increase in task conflicts explains the positive relation between a proactive personality and innovative employee behavior. This process is moderated by job autonomy in such a way that the relationship between proactive personality and task conflict is particularly strong under low compared with high autonomy. The present research contributes to the discussion on the potential benefits of task conflict for change processes and highlights the importance of examining the interplay between personality and work context for understanding innovation practices.
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