CHAPTER 10: Identifying and Measuring Responses to Perceived Discrimination From Supervisors

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a measure of employees’ responses to perceived discrimination from supervisors regardless of reasons for discrimination. A review of the literature indicates that looking at responses to discrimination irrespective of reasons for discrimination is warranted. We found that responses to discriminatory treatment at work by a supervisor are conceptualized in four different ways and that the responses to sexual harassment proposed by Knapp et al. (1997) could be generalized across reasons for discrimination. In Study 1, we generated the items of the scale. In Study 2, we used the items generated to gather additional data in order to evaluate a four-factor structure of responses to discrimination: compensation, social coping, confrontation, and advocacy seeking. In Study 3, we assessed the convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the scale. The scale offers good reliability, satisfactory loadings, good fit indices, and evidence in support of convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. Results suggest that the scale of responses to perceived discrimination from supervisors is a promising tool for conducting research in an era in which discrimination is surrounded by both attributional and situational ambiguity. We contribute to the literature by taking the theoretical framework elaborated by Knapp et al. (1997) for responses to sexual harassment and applying it to discrimination more generally. As subtle discrimination leads to more ambiguity surrounding the reason(s) for discrimination, we focus on responses to discrimination from supervisors irrespective of reason(s), and we develop a measure that captures these responses. Having such a measure is valuable at a time when discrimination often unfolds as hidden and multidetermined.