How Does Dissimilarity Make a Difference? A Multiple Processes Model of Relational Demography

Although relational demographers have based their arguments mainly on social categorization processes, little effort has been paid to empirically investigate whether these processes in fact underpin the impact of demographic dissimilarity on individual outcomes. We theorize and test a comprehensive model that explicates the mechanisms underlying relational demography effects, examining the impact of cultural dissimilarity on expected team performance. Across two laboratory experiments, we found that team identification and anxiety mediated the effect of cultural dissimilarity on expected team performance. The anticipation of working with dissimilar others in the same team reduced implicit categorization, but, as argued, implicit categorization did not directly predict expected team performance. Dissimilarity, however, lowered expected team performance via a lower level of team identification and a higher level anxiety, when individuals’ implicit categorization was inclusive of the dissimilar cultural out- group.