DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Maya SAAT Introduction Social and Organizational Psychology studies behaviors and thoughts in a social context. Humans are born and live in a social environment. In this way, lives, feelings, behaviors and thoughts of people are influenced by others and they are socially shaped (Dillen & Ruigendijk, 2021). One of the underlying psychological processes which is discussed in Social and Organizational Psychology is “Interpersonal and group behavior”. This part examines the people’s connections to each other and how they act in a group. We may place “diversity” in this subject of Social and Organizational Psychology. Diversity implies the extent to which members of a group differ from one another such as differences based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexual orientation, etc. (Gonzalez & Zamanian, 2015). Diversity is recently an important topic in a globalizing world and especially in terms of organizations and workplaces since the significant percentage of migrants (40%) migrate for work according to statistics (EC, Europa, 2020). Figure 1: Reasons for migrating (EC, 2020) DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Overview There are two levels of diversity: surface level of diversity and deep level of diversity (Neck et al., 2019). Surface level of diversity refers to differences based on gender, race, age, etc. which are more visible at the first sight; and deep level of diversity refers to the differences based on religion, political opinion, etc. which are not so visible in the first sight. According to Neck et al. (2019), diversity involves recognizing, respecting and evaluating ‘individual’ and ‘group’ differences. Therefore, we could say that not only visible differences, but also invisible differences (such as personal differences and choices) are important and included in diversity. As Neck et al. (2019) have stated, some people claim that there is not much discrimination these days, so they think they do not need to talk about it. And some people do not accept that they discriminate even if they do it consciously or unconsciously. All humans apply their own stereotypes in their social life; and discrimination is a behavioral part of stereotypes and prejudices. Discrimination is sometimes hard to see and so hard to prove. Especially today it is important to discuss about diversity and accordingly about discrimination because of the high rise of migration. According to World Migration Report (2020), the number of international migrants in US regions, Europa, Asia and other continents has significantly increased from 2000 to 2020. Figure 2: Increase in immigration by continents between 2000-2020 (World Migration Report, 2020) DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Diversity is an important phenomenon in today’s world because ignoring a specific group can cause problems (Neck et al., 2019). On the other hand, diverse groups can make better decision (Neck et al., 2019). For instance, if you ignore your employees who are from different nationalities in a workplace, it can break the dynamics of the organization, and they can revolt so duties will not be fulfilled. On the other hand, in a diverse group, decision making can be much more successful because there could be various of experiences, point of views, background, etc. involved in this decision making. Discrimination is something that is difficult to detect, however we could use “discrimination” to try to understand some statistical facts for instance unemployment rates within the immigrant and non-immigrant groups. For instance, the graph below demonstrates unemployment rate by background (CBS, 2017). Through these statistics we may interpret that discrimination might be an effect on the unemployment rates within immigrant and non-immigrant groups. Figure 3: Unemployment rate by background (CBS, 2017) DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY According to ‘Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)’ which is created by Milton J. Bennett (2017), managing cross cultural diversity has six stages: Denial, defense/reversal, minimization, acceptance, adaptation and integration. Bennett (2017) defines these steps as follows. Denial is the failure to comprehend the existence and the importance of culturally differences; it is also a perception that everyone can be same, and differences are not important (Bennett, 2017). Defense/reversal is the acceptance of differences but also feeling threatened by them; it is the idea that “our culture should be a model for all others” (Bennett, 2017). Minimization is to consider common things more significant than differences; it is the underestimation of the differences (Bennett, 2017). Acceptance is a deep understanding of identity of own and others: it is acceptation of diversity and cultural perspectives (Bennett, 2017). Adaptation is adapting the behaviors into a culture to manage the situation (Bennett, 2017). Integration is a deep understanding of different cultures but firstly and most importantly integration into own (Bennett, 2017). To improve cross cultural communication, people could be more concise, be more patient with accents, be respectful cultural and religious differences, etc. (Neck et al., 2019). DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Context / Discussion and Conclusion When I place those information into my observations, I realize that I have a lot of examples related to this topic from both as a native person in my home country (Turkey) and as a foreigner here in the Netherlands. Mostly, people who discriminate do not accept it. For example, there are a significant number of Syrian refugees in Turkey; according to Kinikoglu (2020), Turkey does a remarkable job in hosting approximately four million Syrian refugees. According to Belmonte’s report (2022), more than 70% of Turkish people consider Syrian refugees "not clean, trustworthy or polite", while 57% state that they are not hardworking and bad in communication; seven out of 10 Turks state that they communicate with Syrian people only when they have to do so. In the same report (Belmonte, 2022), it is indicated that most Turkish people refuse to accept Syrians as members of the wider community. According to my experiences, most Turkish people have stated at the beginning in 2011 that Syrians are welcome in our country, we must help them, they are also human like us, and they deserve a better life. However, it did not work like that for them in the real life. If a Syrian family move out to their next door, they feel disturbed and threatened. If a Syrian works as a cleaner, they are okay with that, but if he/she wants to work as a doctor or a teacher, they feel annoyed and threatened. If Syrian people buy a car or start a small business, they feel also unpleased and threatened. If they speak in Arabic out loud in public place, they feel disturbed and they express it with their body language. However, most Turkish people do not accept that they do discrimination at all. DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY People from other ethnical groups in the Netherlands face the same perceptions as Syrian people in Turkey, so I believe that this problem is independent of countries, people, and any context. Discrimination is everywhere around the world; we all live with it. Everyone applies his/her own thoughts, stereotypes, and prejudice consciously or unconsciously. When I have arrived in the Netherlands, I thought that I have come to an ideal country in which everyone is free, equal and there is no discrimination. Recently, I have been here for almost a year, so I can easily say that there is not such a country that there is no discrimination in. However, Dutch people claims that they never discriminate, and they think that they are a role model to other countries in terms of freedom and equality. As a conclusion, we could say that discrimination is still a huge problem even in this century because it is so hard to prove; mostly, people who discriminate say that they did not mean that. References Belmonte, N. (2022), Six out of 10 Turkish citizens would prefer Syrian refugees to return home, Atalayar, Retrieved from https://atalayar.com/en/content/six-out-10-turkish-citizenswould-prefer-syrian-refugees-return-home Bennett, M. (2017) Development model of intercultural sensitivity. In Kim, Y (Ed) International encyclopedia of intercultural communication. Wiley CBS, 2017, Unemployment down among non-western migrant group, Retrieved from https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2017/32/unemployment-down-among-non-westernmigrant-group DIVERSITY THROUGH SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Dillen, L. and Ruigendijk, H.A.H. (2021), Leiden University (2021-2022) Social and Organizational Psychology Course Prospectus, Retrieved from https://studiegids.universiteitleiden.nl/en/courses/105038/social-and-organisationalpsychology Gonzalez, J.A. and Zamanian, A. (2015) Diversity in Organizations, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition) 2015, Pages 595-600 Kinikoglu, S. (2020), Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Changing Attitudes and Fortunes, Centre for Applied Turkey Studies, NO.5 FEBRUARY 2020 Neck, C. P., Houghton, J. D., Murray, E. L., & SAGE Publishing. (2019). Organizational Behavior - International Student Edition, Chapter 2, SAGE Publications. Reasons for migrating, European Commission, Europa, 2020, Overall figures of immigrants in European society, Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-20192024/promoting-our-european-way-life/statistics-migration-europe_en WORLD MIGRATION REPORT (2020), 2019 International Organization for Migration (IOM), Retrieved from https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2020-interactive/