Mikki Hebl is an applied social psychologist who is part of the I/O
program at Rice University. As such, she publishes in both
mainstream social psychology and I/O psychology journals. Her
research focuses on understanding “mixed” interactions, or
interactions between stigmatized and nonstigmatized individuals
(see Goffman, 1963) and this has resulted in two lines of research
topics.
First, she documents how discrimination is manifested within social interactions and
organizations. Although people are motivated to stigmatize others for a number of reasons
(Heatherton, Kleck, Hebl, & Hull, 2000), she believes that there are simultaneous mounting
pressures for them to avoid stigmatizing others and to appear politically correct or socially
desirable. These complex forces as well as increases in anti-discrimination legislation have
resulted in discrimination now being expressed in less overt and explicit ways than was typical in
the past. A great deal of social psychological research has documented this trend toward subtle
discrimination through questionnaire and laboratory-based studies which have mainly assessed
attitudes. Mikki's research has examined discrimination in the context of actual ongoing
interactions in the field within organizations, assessing behaviors that can reflect the dynamic
aspect of social stigma. Thus, she and her graduate students have demonstrated more subtle
discrimination with obese customers trying to get customer service (Hebl & Mannix, 2003), gay
and lesbian applicants applying for jobs (Hebl, Foster, Mannix, & Dovidio, 2003), pregnant
women trying to complete job applications (Kazama & Hebl, 2003), and obese patients receiving
medical care (Hebl & Xu, 2001).
Second, she examines the ways that stigmatized individuals and organizations can increase
targets’ acceptance in social interactions, entry into organizations, and general interactional or organizational experiences. Her research has focused on remediation both from the stigmatized individual’s perspective and at the organizational level. At the individual level, she has examined
the strategy of acknowledgment, or directly addressing the stigma in an attempt to reduce
interactional strain related to suppression motives. At the organizational level, her research has
shown that inclusive organizational policies are key to reducing discrimination and/or increasing
diversity. Furthermore, there is not just a single policy but many different types of organizational
policies that can effect change. She and her students have shown that this includes mentoring
programs (Hebl, Lin, Knight, & Tonidandel, under review), advertisement brochures that depict
diversity initiatives (Avery, Hernandez, & Hebl, 2003), and family-friendly policies (Foster &
Hebl, under review).
In Mikki's future research endeavors, she plans to continue investigating mixed interactions in an attempt to better understand and successfully remediate discrimination as well as increase diversity. If you are interested in working in her lab or collaborating with her on some of these ideas, please feel free to contact her!