Believing is Seeing? How Diversity Beliefs Shape the Perception of Diversity in Groups

Similar diversity constellations have sometimes been found to aid and sometimes to hamper group processes and performance. Previous research has revealed that diversity can promote group functioning when perceived in terms of differences ("we're all different individuals") but disrupt group functioning when perceived in terms of subgroups ("us versus them" distinctions). However, it is unclear what determines how diversity is perceived. We argue that diversity construal is shaped by group members' beliefs about the value in diversity. Focusing on groups with objective subgroups, we show in a field study and an experiment that the more group members value diversity, the more likely they are to construe their diversity in terms of differences and the less likely they are to construe their diversity in terms of subgroups. The experiment further showed that diversity construal is only affected by diversity beliefs in intellectual tasks (where diversity matters) but not in physical tasks