Blog
“Why is your sexuality or gender identity relevant in the workplace?” This was a central question during my keynote lecture during the yearly Workplace Pride International Conference in Brussels, which centered around the theme of “Building Bridges”.
You can read some coverage of my lecture in Dutch or English.
Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/101039599@N07/34722154414/in/photostream/
Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/101039599@N07/34722154304/in/photostream/
Today, on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT), I gave a keynote lecture at the lunchtime conference on LBGTI workplace issues at the irectorate General of Human Resources and Security of the European Commissio in Brussels, Belgium.
In light of LGBTI equality, a factsheet on the perception of LGBTI equality in the EU can be found here, a more detailed report can be found here.
Image Credit: https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=44677
I am excited to announce that starting January 1st 2017, I will be taking up a new position as the Workplace Pride Chair at Leiden University!
The Workplace Pride Chair is instituted by the Workplace Pride Foundation and Leiden University with the generous support of KPN and provides a focused and scientific approach to studying and improving LGBT inclusion in the workplace both domestically and internationally.
As the Chair, I intend to work on three broad and interrelated lines of research. A first focus will be to identify the factors that influence the workplace inclusion of LGBT+ people and to examine their dynamics. A second aim will be to contribute to evidence-based solutions to workplace inclusion by examining what are (and aren’t) effective types of policies and interventions. A third focus will be on how diversity policy is best communicated and implemented in order to mitigate resistance and enhance both majority and minority members’ support for it.
I will be combining it with my position at Utrecht University so am unlikely to get bored :)
Read more here
A new report by the Knowledge Platform Integration and Society (KIS), in which I was involved as expert consultant, is out examining the plausibility of prejudice reduction training. The most important conclusion? That the effectiveness of such an intervention depends on who is training, who is being trained, and what the objective of the training is (raising awareness, reducing prejudice or changing behavior).
On October 28, I gave a research talk at the Gratama foundation to share my progress since receiving the Gratama Science Prize in 2015.
To this end, I shared with them my social psychological approach to studying support for diversity policy and some preliminary results from recent experimental studies we conducted at Leiden University.
A social psychological approach to studying individual attitudes and behavior
I attended the first ever Conference "LGBT Research in the Low Countries" today, organized by the Flemish-Dutch Network LGBT Research and taking place at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. It was a very interesting and fun day, featuring state of the art research in this interdisciplinary area and allowing plenty opportunity for networking and exchange.
Fun statistic: Our paper "A sense of powerlessness fosters system justification" was the #5 most downloaded Political Psychology article in 2015, with 982 downloads.
Knowledge Platform Integration & Society (KIS) investigated whether diversity programs that aim to create awareness through confrontation with one’s own prejudices or stereotypes, reduces discrimination. This September, they published a literature review entitled (translated): “From confrontation to less discrimination in the workplace. Research into the plausibility of training aimed at awareness of bias in recruitment and selection”, to which I provided an expert contribution.
The full review by Felten, van Oostrum, Taouanza and Keuzenkamp can be found here (in Dutch): “Van Confrontatie naar Minder Discriminatie op de Arbeidsmarkt.”.
Image Credit: https://www.kis.nl/sites/default/files/bestanden/Publicaties/factsheet-discriminatie-confrontatie.pdf
This morning I and other UU newbies received a formal introduction to our new place of work including a tour of University Hall, the university's public face and ceremonial heart. According to the website "It was here that the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1579, an event that is generally viewed as marking the origin of the Dutch nation. When Utrecht University was founded in 1636 it was given the Auditorium by the city." The building sure breathes history!
Photo credit: Rutger Hermsen (Creative Commons)
I had the pleasure of serving on Honorata Mazepus' dissertation committee and receiving the answer to this question first-hand. In her dissertation, Honorata investigated which factors contribute to perceptions of political authorities as legitimate by individuals socialized in different political regimes. She found that citizens care about the outcomes they derive from governing (e.g., material welfare and stability), but are even more so are concerned with the fairness in which goods and services are distributed across society. Results were surprisingly consistent across regimes, thus challenging the notion that there may be something unique about the expectations about political authorities that citizens in non-democratic regimes have.
Honorata did a fabulous job at her defense and very deservedly goes by Dr. Mazepus now!
