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This research explored ironic evaluation processes initiated by suppression instructions conveyed during diversity training. Raters watched one of three training videos: a video providing information about age diversity and recommending that they try to suppress age-related thoughts; a video providing information about age, sex, race, and ethnic diversity and recommending that they try to suppress demography-related thoughts; or a control video containing no suppression recommendations. All raters then evaluated a series of job applicants. During the evaluation task, some raters were cognitively busy while others were not. Ironically, busy raters instructed to suppress age-related thoughts evaluated an older applicant less favorably than raters in other conditions. These results suggest that organizational diversity training including instructions to suppress stereotypic thoughts may have detrimental effects on evaluations of non-traditional job applicants if raters are cognitively busy when they implement these instructions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Kulik et al. (Sat,) studied this question.