use specific details from this article. I will ask a question in the next input. Selective Incivility: Immigrant Groups Experience Subtle Workplace
Discrimination at Different Rates
Franciska Krings and Claire Johnston
University of Lausanne
Steve Binggeli
Rice University
Christian Maggiori
University of Lausanne
Immigrants play an increasingly important role in local labor markets. Not only do they grow steadily in
number but also in cultural, educational, and skill diversity, underlining the necessity to distinguish
between immigrant groups when studying discrimination against immigrants. We examined immigrant
employees’ subtle discrimination experiences in a representative sample in Switzerland, controlling for
dispositional influences. Results showed that mainly members of highly competitive immigrant groups,
from immediate neighbor countries, experienced workplace incivility and that these incivility experiences
were related to higher likelihoods of perceived discrimination at work. This research confirms recent
accounts that successful but disliked groups are particularly likely to experience subtle interpersonal
discrimination.
Keywords: discrimination, incivility, immigrants, diversity
During the last decade, immigrants accounted for 70% of the
increase of the workforce in Europe and for 47% in the United
States (OECD, 2012a). Currently, they make up 16% of the workforce in the United States, 21% in Canada, and 27% in Switzerland, that is, the country where the present study was conducted
(OECD, 2012b; Swiss Federal Statistics Office [SFSO], 2012).
Immigrants have not only increased in number but also in cultural,
educational, and skill diversity. For example, in 2000, most immigrants to the United States came from Hispanic countries, while
in 2012 most immigrants came from Asia (Pew Research Center,
2012). Similarly, most of the earlier immigrants to Switzerland
came from Southern Europe while today most immigrants come
from Western European neighbor countries (Liebig, Kohls, &
Krause, 2012). These new immigrants have higher education levels and work in higher-status positions than earlier immigrants,
responding to many nations’ increasing demand for highly skilled
labor.
In research on workplace discrimination, immigrants have received little attention (Binggeli, Dietz, & Krings, 2013). However,
theories of prejudice and discrimination suggest that immigrants
are likely targets of subtle forms of prejudice and discriminatory
behaviors. Subtle, interpersonal discriminatory behaviors particularly target members of groups perceived as competent competitors (Cortina, 2008; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). Hence,
members of recent, highly skilled immigrant groups may experience more subtle discrimination than members of earlier, less
skilled immigrant groups.
This was the starting point of the present research. It studied the
experience of subtle workplace discrimination of immigrants and
locals in a representative sample of employees in Switzerland. We
focused on the experience of incivility, that is, of being the target
of low-intensity discourteous interpersonal behaviors (Andersson
& Pearson, 1999). Incivilities are general but if they selectively
target a minority group, grounded in diffuse antiminority feelings
and stereotypes, they become a form of subtle interpersonal discrimination (Cortina, 2008). Because immigrants are targets of
subtle prejudice and mainly associated with mixed, ambivalent
stereotypes (Lee & Fiske, 2006; Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995), we
expected immigrants to experience more incivility than locals.
Further, theories of intergroup competition and stereotype content
suggest that groups perceived as competitive and highly competent
but as little likable, experience more subtle discrimination (Esses,
Dovidio, Jackson, & Armstrong, 2001; Fiske et al., 2002). Indeed,
depending on their national origin, immigrant groups differ remarkably on perceived competence and likability (Lee & Fiske,
2006). Hence, we expected immigrants belonging to groups perceived as highly competent but less likable to be particularly
frequent targets of incivility. Of importance, these differences are
This article was published Online First August 18, 2014.
Franciska Krings, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of
Organizational Behavior, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland;
Claire Johnston and Christian Maggiori, National Competence Center in
Research LIVES, University of Lausanne; Steve Binggeli, Department of
Psychology, Rice University.
This research is part of the National Competence Center in Research
LIVES, which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The
authors are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation for its
financial support. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 28th
annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology conference in
Houston, Texas, April 2013.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Franciska
Krings, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Organizational
Behavior, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. E-mail:
<PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_EMAIL_ADDRESS>
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Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology © 2014 American Psychological Association
2014, Vol. 20, No. 4, 491– 498 1099-9809/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0035436
491
expected above and beyond other personal characteristics (e.g.,
neuroticism) related to experiencing incivility and discrimination.
In the remainder of the introduction, we first outline the concept
of selective workplace incivility as subtle discrimination against
immigrant employees. Then, we describe how differences in stereotypes of national or ethnic groups may affect rates of experienced workplace incivility. Finally, we discuss possible relations
between experiences of incivility and perceived discrimination.
Selective Incivility as Subtle Discrimination
Against Immigrants
At the base of subtle discrimination are subtle prejudice and
stereotypes (Cortina, 2008; Dipboye & Halverson, 2004). Subtle
prejudices encompass the belief that discrimination is a thing of
the past, that minority groups’ claims are unfair and that there are
large (cultural) differences between social groups (Gaertner &
Dovidio, 1986; McConahay, 1986; Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter,
1995). These beliefs present a subtle, ostensibly rational form of
expressing prejudice and help people preserve a nonprejudiced
self-image. In a similar vein, recent work on the content of stereotypes has shown that most group stereotypes are mixed, that is,
contain positive (e.g., trustworthy) and negative (e.g., incompetent) elements (Fiske et al., 2002). Because of the positive elements, many stereotypical beliefs are subjectively experienced as
nonprejudicial (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001). Subtle prejudices and
mixed stereotypes result in interpersonal rather than in formal
discrimination (Hebl, Foster, Mannix, & Dovidio, 2002). Interpersonal discrimination emerges in social interactions at work, including verbal, nonverbal, and paraverbal behaviors, and is subtler and
more compatible with a nonprejudiced self-image than formal,
more direct discrimination, which occurs, for example, at hiring or
promotion and is, in most countries, against the law.
Cortina (2008) recently proposed that workplace incivility may
take the form of subtle, interpersonal discrimination. Incivility is
“low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the
target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil
behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a
lack of regard for others” (Andersson & Pearson, 1999, p. 457). It
encompasses behaviors such as interrupting, ignoring or using a
condescending tone. Despite their low-intensity, these behaviors
have several detrimental consequences for targets, such as greater
levels of stress, lower commitment and job satisfaction, or higher
quit rates (Pearson & Porath, 2004).
When incivility selectively targets members of minority groups,
based on ambivalent antiminority feelings and stereotypes, it becomes discrimination (Cortina, 2008). This discrimination is subtle
because of the ambiguous nature and apparent neutrality of the
uncivil behaviors, instigators easily find (consciously or not) nonprejudicial explanations for their conduct (e.g., “I have too much
work”). Selective incivility is hence a particularly well-suited
means by which people may mistreat minorities without damaging
their nonprejudiced image of themselves and toward others.
Recent studies provide first empirical evidence for such targeted
incivilities: Women and people of color reported higher rates of
uncivil treatment at work than men and Whites (Cortina et al.,
2002; Cortina, Kabat-Farr, Leskinen, Huerta, & Magley, 2011). In
this research, we examined incidence rates of incivility for immigrants, compared with locals. Several elements suggest that immigrants are likely targets. First, immigrants are targets of subtle
prejudice (Akrami, Ekehammar, & Araya, 2000; Pettigrew &
Meertens, 1995). Further, immigrants are mainly associated with
ambivalent or mixed stereotypes, which encompass positive and
negative features: Most immigrant groups are either perceived as
incompetent but nice (e.g., Irish immigrants in the United States or
Portuguese immigrants in Switzerland) or as competent but less
likable (e.g., Asian immigrants in the United States or German
immigrants in Switzerland) (Binggeli, Krings, & Sczesny, in press;
Lee & Fiske, 2006). Subtle prejudice toward immigrants and
mixed immigrant stereotypes provide the attitudinal and cognitive
basis for subtle mistreatments at work. Second, earlier research on
employment discrimination has shown that subtle prejudice indeed
fosters discrimination against immigrants (Krings & Olivares,
2007; Petersen & Dietz, 2005). Finally, immigrants themselves
report feeling discriminated against at work (Jasinskaja-Lahti,
Liebkind, & Perhoniemi, 2007; Kravitz & Klineberg, 2000).
Therefore, we expected the following:
Hypothesis 1: Immigrants report more experiences of workplace incivility than locals.
When analyzing differences between social groups, it is important to control for personality differences because certain characteristics of the target may contribute to the likelihood of experiencing discriminatory behaviors (Milam, Spitzmueller, & Penney,
2009). For example, people low in agreeableness or high in neuroticism tend to be distrustful and display discourteous, bothersome behaviors (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Thus, they may be more
likely to perceive an event as rude, as well as to provoke uncivil
behaviors from others as a reaction to their own behaviors. Indeed,
people low in agreeableness and high in neuroticism experience
more incivility (Milam et al., 2009). As a consequence, for testing
our hypotheses, we controlled for employees’ level of neuroticism
and agreeableness, to assure that effects of group membership
would persist, above and beyond those of individual differences.
Some Immigrant Groups Are More Likely Targets of
Incivility Than Others
The global stereotype of immigrants as a group is that they are
untrustworthy and incompetent (Eckes, 2002). However, recent
work suggests that immigrants should not be treated as one entity:
Stereotypes of immigrants differ remarkably between groups depending on the group’s country of origin. Drawing on the stereotype content model, Lee and Fiske (2006) showed that perceptions
of warmth (being good-natured, kind) and competence (being
intelligent, skillful) of immigrant groups differed as a function of
the groups’ national origin. These perceptions result from sociostructural relations between locals and immigrant groups: Immigrant groups viewed as high status are perceived as high in
competence and groups viewed as competing for resources are
perceived as lacking warmth.
Importantly, different warmth and competence stereotypes give
rise to more or less hostile behaviors (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick,
2007; Sibley, 2011). As outlined above, mixed stereotypes provide
the foundation for subtle behaviors undermining equality. Hence,
most immigrants should be likely targets of subtle mistreatments at
work. However, groups perceived as competent but cold should be
somewhat more targeted than groups perceived as incompetent but
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492 KRINGS, JOHNSTON, BINGGELI, AND MAGGIORI
nice because the former elicit more hostility, especially when they
gain more status or power (e.g., when they are successful in the
labor market) than the latter (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2008; Fiske
et al., 2002). The clear competence and ability of these groups
makes it difficult to blatantly discriminate against them. However,
their perceived lack of interpersonal warmth and sociability makes
it easier to subtly discriminate against them, in everyday social
interactions at work (e.g., by addressing them in unprofessional
terms). Similarly, Cortina (2008) argued that professionally successful women and black professionals are particularly prone to
experience selective incivility because they are considered (excessively) competent and ambitious, ultimately threatening the dominant position of the majority.
These considerations suggest that immigrants belonging to national or ethnic groups perceived as competent but cold are more
likely targets of workplace incivility. In Switzerland, it is immigrants from the immediate neighbor countries (Germany and
France) that receive this stereotype. These immigrants are perceived as highly competent but less likable, as demonstrated by a
recent analysis of warmth and competence stereotypes of the most
salient immigrant groups in Switzerland (Binggeli et al., in press).
Four groups emerged from this analysis: (1) immigrants perceived
as low in competence and low in warmth, comprising immigrants
from the Balkans, Turkey, and Eastern Europe; (2) immigrants
perceived as moderately warm but incompetent, with immigrants
from Africa; (3) immigrants perceived as highly warm but moderately competent, comprising immigrants from Southern Europe;
and, finally, (4) immigrants perceived as highly competent but
lacking warmth, consisting of German and French immigrants.
Warmth perceptions of German immigrants were particularly low
in the German-speaking region of Switzerland, whereas warmth
perceptions of French immigrants were particularly low in the
French-speaking region.
The number of German and French immigrants has multiplied
since Switzerland introduced freedom of movement for people
from European-Union member states in 2002 (Liebig et al., 2012).
Since then, no other immigrant group has increased in size as
considerably and as rapidly as they have. Today, these immigrants
are among the three largest immigrant groups in Switzerland.
Compared with immigrants from other nations, they have a strong
competitive advantage: They speak one of the two main national
languages of Switzerland (i.e., German or French) and tend to be
highly educated. Hence, it is no surprise that they have higher
employment rates and are more likely to work in high status
positions than any other immigrant group, and even than locals
(SFSO, 2012). The competitiveness of these groups has led to a
heated public debate, revealing that they are perceived as a threat
and strong competitors for desirable resources such as jobs. Indeed, the perceived competitiveness of these groups explains their
low levels of likability or perceived warmth (Binggeli, Krings, &
Sczesny, 2013). Taken together, in certain ways, German and
French immigrants are comparable with Asians in the United
States, which is a group that too is very successful on the labor
market and that too is stereotyped as excessively competitive and
highly competent, but as lacking sociability (Lee & Fiske, 2006;
Lin, Kwang, Cheung, & Fiske, 2005).
In summary, based on German and French immigrants’ highcompetence or low-warmth stereotype as well as their strong
competitiveness, we expected the following:
Hypothesis 2: Immigrants from France and Germany report
more experiences of workplace incivility than immigrants of
other nations, so that German and French immigrants report
the highest rate of incivility, followed by other immigrants,
followed by locals.
Linking Selective Incivility and Perceived
Discrimination
To what extent incivility experiences fuel perceptions of discrimination by the target is an open question. On the one hand,
given the apparently neutral and ambiguous nature of incivility, it
may be difficult for targets to recognize it as discrimination (Cortina, 2008). Targets may be just as ready to find nonprejudicial
explanations for receiving uncivil treatment as instigators do for
acting uncivil. On the other hand, over time, targets may realize
that they are mistreated more frequently than their colleagues and
come to realize that being the target is related their minority status.
Moreover, if incivility selectively targets their group, they are
likely to observe that other members of their group are treated
similarly, further highlighting the discriminatory component and
increasing the probability of feeling discriminated against.
To our knowledge, the relation between selective incivility and
perceived discrimination has not been empirically tested yet. In the
light of the considerations above, we analyzed the relation in an
exploratory manner.
Method
Participants and Procedure
This study is part of a larger, longitudinal project, hosted by the
National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES. Data for this
study are from the first data collection wave in 2012. A representative sample of the working age population living in Switzerland
was drawn based on a random sample from the Swiss Federal
Statistics Office. Sampling was targeted at the two largest linguistic regions, the German-speaking and the French-speaking regions,
and was representative in terms of age, gender, linguistic region,
and nationality.
Participants (n  2,001) completed a research protocol consisting of two steps. The first part, completed by a computer-assisted
telephone interview or as an online questionnaire, aimed to explain
the goal of the study, verify the inclusion criteria (e.g., age between 25 and 55, living in Switzerland) and determine the participants’ professional situation and biography. The second part,
completed via a paper-pencil or as an online questionnaire, assessed aspects of the work and social environment, personal characteristics and general outcomes. Most participants (79%) completed both parts online. Most of the local and immigrant
participants (67%) answered the questionnaire in German. This
proportion corresponds to the percentage of people living in the
German part, that is, in Switzerland’s largest linguistic region.
The University of Lausanne does not have an institutional
review board for psychology or social science research. This
research thus applied the ethical standards of the Swiss Psychological Society. Accordingly, the survey avoided any treatment
that might have a detrimental effect on the well-being or integrity
of participants. During the first part, participants were informed
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IMMIGRANTS’ INCIVILITY EXPERIENCES 493
about the purpose of the study and were ensured their data would
remain confidential. Agreement to participate by responding to the
questions and filling out the questionnaire was taken as consent.
For the present research, we included only employed participants. The resulting sample consisted of 1,661 employees, of
which 1,359 were Swiss and 302 were immigrants. Hence, 18% of
participants were immigrants. This is somewhat lower than the
current percentage of immigrants in the Swiss workforce (27%)
and can be explained by the study’s inclusion criteria (e.g., only
workers between age 25 and 55 were included) and by the fact that
participants needed sufficient proficiency in French or German to
participate.
Of the immigrant participants, 43.4% came from France or
Germany. The remaining immigrants, grouped into one category
for the following analyses, came from various countries: 24%
came from Southern European countries (e.g., Portugal, Spain),
11% from Northern European countries (e.g., Norway, Sweden),
8% from the Balkans (e.g., Bosnia, Croatia) or Turkey, 4% from
countries in Eastern Europe or central Asia (e.g., Ukraine, Russia),
and the rest (9.6%) from various countries in Asia, Northern or
Southern America. Most (63%) had permanent residence permits,
37% had annual residence permits that are easily renewed if
immigrants are still employed.
Half of the local (49%) and immigrant participants (48%) were
women. Locals were on average 42.15 years (SD  8.63) and
immigrants 40 years (SD  7.87) old. Mean educational levels
(ranging from 1  obligatory schooling, 4  degree in higher
education) were 2.80 (SD  0.97) for locals and 2.90 (SD  1.14)
for immigrants. Furthermore, educational mean level comparisons
suggest that immigrants from Germany and France were better
educated, M  3.31, SD  0.91, than immigrants of other nationalities, M  2.61, SD  1.21, or locals. This pattern mirrors the
current Swiss labor market (Liebig et al., 2012). However, these
numbers should be interpreted with caution, for two reasons. First,
120 participants (95 locals and 26 immigrants) did not indicate
their education. Second, participants indicated their educational
level with predefined categories that are used in the Swiss education system, which can be problematic because of differences in
educational systems between countries.
The majority of locals (75.5%) and immigrants (84.9%) were
employed at an activity rate of 80% and more, that is, they worked
between 36.2 (80%) and 42 hr (100%) per week. A bit less than
half of the participants (43% and 44% of locals and immigrants,
respectively) indicated holding a supervisory position. German and
French immigrants were more likely to hold a supervisory position
(54.2%) than immigrants of other nationalities (36.3%) or locals
(43%).
Measures
Descriptive statistics, correlations, and reliabilities (alpha coefficients) for the measures are reported in Table 1. Unless specified
otherwise, a team of bilingual (French- and German-speaking)
researchers translated scales that only existed in English into
French and German. A second team of bilingual researchers independently verified the translations, to make sure that the German
and French versions were equivalent. The entire questionnaire was
pretested for comprehensibility of instructions and items in a
sample of 50 adults between the ages of 25 and 55 (25 women; 25
German-speaking; 25 French-speaking).
Workplace incivility was measured with four items of the incivility measure developed by (Cortina, Magley, Williams, and
Langhout, 2001; see Table 2, p.70), choosing those items that
showed the highest factor loadings in the initial validation study.
More specifically, participants were asked to indicate how often
during the past 12 months they had been in a situation where any
of their coworkers or supervisors (1) had put them down or was
condescending, (2) paid little attention to their statement or little
interest in their opinion, (3) made demeaning or derogatory remarks about them, or (4) addressed them in unprofessional terms,
either publicly or privately. Responses were indicated on 5-point
scales, ranging from 1  never to 5  most of the time.
Perceived discrimination was assessed with a single item, similar to the one of the Gallup Survey, analyzed by Avery, McKay
and Wilson (2008). Participants were asked if they had been
discriminated against, based on their ethnicity or nationality,
within their workplace during the past 12 months. Responses were
indicated as yes or no.
Table 1
Descriptives and Correlations of Study and Control Variables
M (SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Age 42.15 (8.63) —
2. Gender 0.49 (0.50) .01 —
3. Activity rate 18.49 (3.84) .11 .51 —
4. Organizational justice 3.70 (0.63) .03 .01 .02 (.82)
5. Agreeableness 3.62 (0.45) .12 .22 .17 .06 (.70)
6. Neuroticism 2.55 (0.59) .09 .15 .10 .30 .12 (.83)
7. Incivility 6.45 (2.84) .00 .00 .06 .46 .07 .22 (.85)
8. Perc. discrimination 0.05 (0.02) .08 .02 .03 .08 .08 .06 .14 —
9. G/F immigrants 0.08 (0.27) .08 .01 .05 .01 .03 .03 .05 .24 —
10. Other immigrants 0.10 (0.30) .07 .00 .07 .03 .00 .02 .02 .13 .10 —
Note. Perc. discrimination  Perceived workplace discrimination based on national or ethnic origin (coded as 0  no and 1  yes). G/F immigrants
German or French immigrants (0  local, 1  German or French immigrants). Other immigrants  immigrant of nationalities other than German or French
(0  local, 1  other immigrants). Gender was coded as 0  male, 1  female. Age was assessed in years. Activity rate was assessed in percentages (1
4% or less, 20  95–100%).
Reliabilities are shown in parentheses along the diagonal. For all correlations n between 1,640 and 1,661.  p  .05.  p  .01.
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494 KRINGS, JOHNSTON, BINGGELI, AND MAGGIORI
Control variables related to participants’ personality, demographics, and work context were used to isolate the effects of
immigrant status and nationality on incivility. First, we controlled
for participant agreeableness and neuroticism because people low
in agreeableness and high in neuroticism experience more incivility (Milam et al., 2009). Traits were assessed with the 12 itemscales of neuroticism (e.g., “I often get angry at the way people
treat me”) and agreeableness (e.g., “I tend to assume the best about
people”) of the French (Aluja, García, Rossier, & García, 2005)
and German versions (Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1993; Schmitz,
Hartkamp, Baldini, Rollnik, & Tress, 2001) of the NEO Five
Factor Inventory Revised (McCrae & Costa, 2004). Participants
responded on 5-point scales, ranging from 1  strongly disagree
to 5  strongly agree. Second, we controlled for gender and age.
Women experience more incivility than men (Cortina et al., 2011).
Older employees are more discriminated against than their
younger counterparts (Gordon & Arvey, 2004), suggesting that
they may become targets of selective incivility. Third, we controlled for participants’ activity rate because being more present at
the workplace may increase the probability to experience incivility. Activity rate was assessed with the following question: “What
is your current rate of work? Take into account all current jobs and
consider only paid activities.” Responses were indicated on a
20-category scale, with each category spanning 5% (2.5 hr per
week) (1  4% or less, 20  95% to 100%). Further, we controlled for organizational justice perceptions because low organizational justice is related to higher incidences of workplace aggression in general (Berry, Ones, & Sackett, 2007). Organizational
justice was assessed with the short version of the questionnaire by
Colquitt (2001), validated by Elovainio et al. (2010), that covers
distributive (two items, e.g., “Does your work situation reflect the
effort you have put into your work?”), procedural (three items,
e.g., “Have you been able to express your views and feelings
during those procedures?”) and interpersonal justice (three items,
e.g., “Has your supervisor treated you with respect?”). For the
interpersonal justice, we omitted one item (“Has your supervisor
seemed to tailor his or her communications to individuals’ specific
needs?”) because the item was difficult to translate adequately into
French and German. Responses were indicated on 5-point scales
(1  to a small extent, 5  to a large extent).
Results
Hypotheses were tested with multiple regressions, with age,
gender, neuroticism, agreeableness, activity rate and organizational justice as control variables,1 nationality (locals vs. German
and French immigrants vs. immigrants of other nationalities;
dummy-coded) as predictor, and incivility sum scores as criterion.2
To test both the effect of immigrant status (being an immigrant
vs. a local) and of immigrant nationality (being a German or
French immigrant vs. an immigrant of another nationality) as
stated in H1 and H2, two dummy codes for nationality were
used that differed with respect to their reference category:
locals, in Model 1, and immigrants of nationalities other than
French or German in Model 2.
For the control variables, results of the final model showed that
people with higher activity rates, those high in neuroticism and
people perceiving less organizational justice reported more incivility. Further, as expected, German or French immigrant experienced more incivility (M  6.89, SD  3.15) than locals (M
6.42, SD  2.85) (see Model 1, Table 2). German and French
immigrants also experienced more incivility than immigrants of
other nationalities (M  6.31, SD  2.54; see Model 2, Table 2).
However, the latter did not experience more incivility than locals
did.
In summary, H1 received partial support: Not all immigrants
experienced more incivility than locals; only German and French
immigrants did. In support of H2, German and French immigrants
experienced more incivility than immigrants of other nationalities.
To explore relations between selective incivility and perceived
workplace discrimination, we analyzed the joint impact of nationality and incivility on perceived discrimination, using logistic
regressions, with perceived discrimination as criterion. As in the
previous models, gender, age, activity rate, organizational justice,
agreeableness, and neuroticism were entered as control variables.
Nationality (dummy-coded, in two sets; see above) and incivility
were entered as predictors. Among the control variables, only
agreeableness was related to perceived discrimination, B  0.63,
SE  0.31, Odds Ratio (OR)  0.54, 2
(9)  120.49, p  .001,
indicating that people low in agreeableness were more likely to
report having been discriminated against. Among the main variables, immigrant status was related to perceived discrimination:
Both being a German or French immigrant, B  2.61, SE  0.31,
1 In preliminary analyses, we added supervisor status as a control variable. However, supervisor status was unrelated to incivility and to perceived discrimination, for locals, German and French immigrants, and
other immigrants, all rs between .04 and .07, ns. Furthermore, including
it in the regression models did not change results or improve the model nor
did supervisor status emerge as a significant predictor. Thus, we did not
include it in the final models. 2 To make sure that regression coefficients were not biased by differences in sub-sample size, we re-ran the regression analyses generating 95%
confidence intervals, based on 500 bootstrap samples. The pattern of
results was identical the one reported in Table 2 or within the text.
Table 2
Regression Results for Immigrant Status and Nationality,
Predicting Experiences of Incivility at Work
Predictor
Model 1 Model 2
B SE B SE
Control variables
Age 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01
Gender 0.14 0.15 0.14 0.15
Activity rate 0.05 0.02 0.05 0.02
Organizational justice 1.96 0.10 1.96 0.10
Neuroticism 0.47 0.11 0.47 0.11
Agreeableness 0.16 0.15 0.16 0.15
Locals vs. G/F immigrants 0.46 0.23 — —
Locals vs. other immigrants 0.24 0.21 — —
Other immigrants vs. G/F
immigrants — — 0.70 0.29
Other immigrants vs. locals — — 0.24 0.21
Note. Adjusted R2  .23, F(8, 1625)  60.79, p  .001. G/F immigrants  German or French immigrants. Other immigrants  immigrant of
nationalities other than German or French. Gender was coded as 0  male,
1  female. Age was assessed in years. Activity rate was assessed in
percentages (1  4% or less, 20  95–100%).  p  .05.  p  .01.
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IMMIGRANTS’ INCIVILITY EXPERIENCES 495
OR  13.47, p  .001, and being an immigrant of another
nationality, B  1.99, SE  0.33, OR  7.32, p  .001, increased
the probability to report having been discriminated against. Finally, incivility too was related to perceived discrimination: Experiencing more incivility increased the probability to report having been discriminated against, B  0.17, SE  0.04, OR  1.18,
p  .001.
Discussion
This study makes novel contributions to research on workplace
discrimination. First, immigrant employees’ experiences of incivility are shown for the first time using a representative sample,
drawing attention to an increasingly important but often forgotten
minority in the I/O psychology literature (Binggeli, Dietz, &
Krings, 2013). Second, it shows that subtle discrimination can be
highly selective, mainly targeting those immigrant groups who are
perceived as highly competitive and competent but as less likable.
This result also underlines that discrimination against immigrants
can only be understood when taking the diversity within this group
into account. Third, by uncovering relations between experiences
of incivility and perceived discrimination for the first time, it
provides direct empirical evidence for the claim that selective
incivility is indeed a form of discrimination. Finally, it is important
to note that effects persisted above and beyond those of personality
traits known to influence the experience of discriminatory behaviors.
More specifically, drawing on Cortina’s (2008) model of subtle
discrimination, we studied immigrants’ incivility experiences,
compared with locals. Results revealed that not all immigrants
experienced more incivility than locals. Rather, it was mainly
immigrant groups from the immediate neighboring countries, who
have multiplied in number during the past decade, and who are
very competitive and successful on the local labor market. However, competitiveness costs liking: These groups are perceived as
highly competitive and competent but as lacking socioemotional
warmth (Binggeli et al., 2013). As such, they receive similar
stereotypes such as Asians in the United States do (Lin et al., 2005;
Lee & Fiske, 2006), suggesting that this group too may experience
higher rates of workplace incivility. The combination of low
warmth with high competence may be what makes these groups
likely targets of subtle interpersonal discrimination: Whereas their
high levels of competence are difficult to deny and (reluctantly or
not) given credit for by locals, they are denigrated on warmth, that
is, perceived as lacking in warmth and sociability, which may
provide the basis for locals to treat them disrespectfully on an
interpersonal level.
We also found that immigrant groups were more likely than
locals to report having been discriminated against on the basis of
their national or ethnic origin, at work, and that these perceptions
were, in part, fueled by incivility experiences. This result has at
least two implications. First, the linkage between incivility and
perceived discrimination corroborates the claim that incivility can
be a form of discrimination. It also suggests that while incivility is
subtle from the instigator’s perspective, it may be less subtle from
the target’s perspective. Second, it underlines the toxic nature of
seemingly mild discourteous behaviors at work. Incivility experiences have various negative consequences for targets, for example,
for their well-being or organizational commitment (Pearson &
Porath, 2004). They also increase intentions to quit (Cortina et al.,
2011). Incivility experiences combined with feelings of being
discriminated against may further reinforce intentions to leave
one’s job and ultimately drive immigrants out of their workplaces.
We controlled for age and gender in our analyses because these
groups are often targets of workplace discrimination. However,
neither women nor older employees of our study experienced more
incivility, which may be explained by several factors. First, unlike
earlier studies testing the effects of gender and age (Cortina et al.,
2011), we controlled for personality factors when predicting incivility. Indeed, neuroticism was closely related to reports of incivility, corroborating earlier findings (Milam et al., 2009), and
underlining the necessity to control for stable individual differences, to isolate the effect of group membership on incivility.
Second, analyses were based on a representative sample of the
working age population and hence covered employees in a wide
range of organizations and occupations. Incivility may be more
pronounced in organizational contexts where older employees or
women are perceived as “not belonging,” because of social stereotypes, for example, successful women in male-dominated environments (Cortina, 2008; Cortina et al., 2011) or older employees in an organization characterized as young and dynamic
(Diekman & Hirnisey, 2007). Finally, the absence of higher incivility rates for older compared with younger employees is in line
with earlier findings (Cortina et al., 2011). One explanation may be
found in the age limit applied in this study (i.e., age 55), possibly
excluding those who would experience the most age discrimination. Another explanation may lie in the older worker stereotype
that describes older employees as incompetent (i.e., low in competence) but nice (i.e., high in warmth) (Krings, Sczesny, & Kluge,
2011). Even though mixed stereotypes in general can fuel subtle
interpersonal discrimination, results of our study and of other
research suggest that the main drivers of interpersonal discrimination may reside with the combination of low warmth and high
competence perceptions (Cuddy et al., 2008). Being perceived as
incompetent but harmless and trustworthy may actually protect
individuals from experiencing interpersonal mistreatments.
Study Limitations and Future Research
This study has limitations, and we would like to point out three.
First, to participate, immigrants needed sufficient knowledge of
one of the two largest national languages. Even though participation required only basic language skills as questions were kept
simple, immigrants who did not speak these languages or only very
poorly were not included. Further, only legal immigrants with a
work permit were included. Consequently, illegal immigrants or
immigrants that were less well integrated or well off, because of
language problems, were not represented. Reaching these groups is
a general and recurrent difficulty in survey research with immigrants (Laganá, Elcheroth, Penic, Kleiner, & Fasel, 2013). However, they make up an important part of the immigrant population,
and they are likely to experience discrimination. To attain a more
complete picture of immigrants’ work experiences, future research
should invest more efforts to include them.
Second, effects of immigrant status on incivility and of incivility
on perceived discrimination were significant but modest. This may
be because of the fact that analyses were based on a large representative sample and hence included a wide array of possible
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496 KRINGS, JOHNSTON, BINGGELI, AND MAGGIORI
influencing factors. For this reason, we included several relevant
control variables related to participant demographics and employment context in the analyses. We also controlled for the impact of
personality traits that were significantly related to the outcome
variables. Thus, even though effects were modest, they are robust.
Further, the significant, albeit modest effect of incivility on perceived discrimination underlines that incivility is a subtle form of
discrimination. Compared with blatant discriminatory acts, incivility’s subtle, ambiguous nature makes it more difficult for targets
to recognize it as discriminatory. Future research should investigate both relations of perceived discrimination with experiences of
subtle and of more blatant discriminatory acts, whereas the former
relation should be stronger than the latter or emerge only after a
certain time; that is, after repeated experiences of incivility.
Third, this study was carried out with national or ethnic groups
in Switzerland. We are not aware of comparable studies in other
countries so results should be replicated in a different context (e.g.,
in a different country, with the according highly competent but
little likable immigrant groups).
Conclusion
Steadily increasing in number, immigrants play a progressively
important role in local labor markets. Concurrently, they are a
highly diverse group differing not only in terms of culture but also
in terms of education and skill-level. For example, more recently,
many countries have tried to attract larger numbers of skilled and
educated immigrants, to combat shortages in highly skilled labor.
Our research suggests that workplace discrimination experiences
of these immigrants differ from those of earlier, less well-educated
immigrants. Notably, the experience of subtle interpersonal discrimination of competitive immigrant groups from immediate
neighboring countries draws researchers’ and organizations’ attention to a group that is typically overlooked. These groups are
believed to integrate easily into the host country and labor market,
and hence tend to be forgotten when designing measures to combat
discrimination against immigrants. Further, by underlining the
discriminatory nature of these seemingly harmless discourteous
behaviors, it highlights the need for policymakers and organizations to discuss how to better protect employees from workplace
discrimination. The law prohibits discrimination but focuses on
blatant rather than on subtle discriminatory acts, ultimately leaving
members of groups experiencing selective incivility without legal
protection.
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