CHAPTER 11: The Socialization-Stress Model of Workplace Racial Harassment: Antecedents, Consequences, and Implications

We present a socialization-stressor model of racial harassment (SSMR) to explain why racial harassment occurs despite laws against it. It extends prior models and explains how socialization, categorization, and social identity can result in racial harassment. We predict that certain types of organizational climates for diversity, work-group compositions, and employee attitudes perpetrate harassment. Our model explains why some employees perpetrate racial harassment, while others observe it. Our model elaborates on how victims and bystanders use culturally socialized prototypes about racism to interpret which types of ambiguous experiences are racially harassing. We argue that workplace racial harassment is an interpersonal injustice that can be perpetrated by anyone in the organization. It is distinct from workplace racial discrimination, a distributive and procedural injustice that can only be perpetrated by those who have supervisory power over the employee. Thus, our model predicts that harassment and discrimination should be related to different outcomes. We then draw on models of stress to explain why, upon experiencing racial harassment, victims and bystanders report poor job attitudes, poor mental health, and poor physical health which causes them to disengage from their jobs and withdraw from the organization. Our model predicts that because of the derogatory and exclusionary nature of racial harassment, victims’ opportunities for advancing within the organization start to dwindle, leading to their lowered performance, which in turn, leads to their racial discrimination in evaluations, pay, and promotions. Thus, harassment can predict discrimination. Our comprehensive model has clear directions for future research, implications for theory development, and practical suggestions for organizations.