The Role of Perceived Autonomy-Supportive Communications for Motivating Prejudice Reduction and Avoiding Defiant Backlash Within the Police Force Workplace

Weinstein, Netta; Legate, Nicole; Graham, Les; Zheng, Yuyan; Plater, Marisa; Al-Khouja, Maya; Moller, Arlen C.

doi:10.1111/jasp.12953

The Role of Perceived Autonomy-Supportive Communications for Motivating Prejudice Reduction and Avoiding Defiant Backlash Within the Police Force Workplace

Weinstein, Netta; Legate, Nicole; Graham, Les; Zheng, Yuyan; Plater, Marisa; Al-Khouja, Maya; Moller, Arlen C.

Authors

Netta Weinstein

Nicole Legate

Professor Les Graham l.n.graham@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Yuyan Zheng

Marisa Plater marisa.plater@durham.ac.uk
Research Assistant

Maya Al-Khouja

Arlen C. Moller

Abstract

Workplace prejudice-reduction efforts tend to be short lived at best, and can even arouse defiance, or a desire to oppose requests or rules, in employees. The motivational approach of self-determination theory (SDT) describes how communicating about prejudice-reduction can be scaffolded in ways that inspire genuine motivation and avoid eliciting defensive responses. From an SDT perspective, such autonomy-supportive communications take the perspective of the employee, provide choice about how to best approach attitude change, provide a rationale or compelling reason for the importance of change, offer structure through explaining the consequences of bias, and avoid the use of shame to compel change. In two multi-wave studies with British police officers and staff, we hypothesized that employees would report lower prejudice (operationalized as having less antagonistic attitudes toward police forces investing in diversity) when they perceived forces to communicate about prejudice in autonomy-supportive ways (Studies 1 and 2). We also tested whether this association would be explained by lower defiance when perceiving autonomy-supportive communications (Study 2). Results supported the main effect of perceived autonomy support in communication, relating to lower prejudice in multi-wave (Study 1, n=1226) and longitudinal data (Study 2, n=232). We consider implications for communicating about prejudice-reduction efforts in the workplace.

Citation

Weinstein, N., Legate, N., Graham, L., Zheng, Y., Plater, M., Al-Khouja, M., & Moller, A. C. (2023). The Role of Perceived Autonomy-Supportive Communications for Motivating Prejudice Reduction and Avoiding Defiant Backlash Within the Police Force Workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 53(5), 443-454. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12953

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 22, 2022
Online Publication Date	Dec 5, 2022
Publication Date	2023-05
Deposit Date	Dec 1, 2022
Publicly Available Date	Dec 6, 2023
Journal	Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Print ISSN	0021-9029
Electronic ISSN	1559-1816
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	53
Issue	5
Pages	443-454
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12953
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1184786

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Copyright Statement
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Weinstein, N., Legate, N., Graham, L., Zheng, Y., Plater, M., Al-Khouja, M., & Moller, A. C. (2023). The role of perceived autonomy-supportive communication for motivating prejudice reduction and avoiding defiant backlash within the police force workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 53, 443– 454. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12953, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12953. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.