Responding to tokenism: Individual action in the face of collective injustice

Abstract

Tokenism is defined as as intergroup context in which very few members of a disadvantaged group are accepted into positions usually reserved for members of the advantaged group, while access is systematically denied for the vast majority of disqualified disadvantaged group member. In a laboratory experiment, Wright, Taylor and Moghaddam (1990) found that when disadvantaged group members are denied upward mobility because of a policy of tokenism they did not respond with socially disruptive forms of collective action. Instead, they chose a more benign individual non-normative response. The robustness of this unexpected response to tokenism is explored in two experiments. In Experiment 1, the use of a relevant real-world ingroup as the target of tokenism resulted in a pattern of responses consistent with Wright et al.'s (1990) findings. In Experiment 2, interaction with other disadvantaged group members prior to the imposition of the policy of tokenism also did not alter participants' behavioural responses. These findings support the robustness of this pattern of response to tokenism, and strengthen concerns that tokenism may be an effective tool for reducing the likelihood of collective action directed against the discriminatory practices of the advantaged group. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.