Research interests
- Conferral of Status and Legitimacy to Women in Leadership
- Women are still heavily under-represented in the highest positions of power and influence. Part of this glass ceiling effect is driven by persisting gender stereotypes, stereotypes leading observers to assume that a woman lacks the agentic, instrumental attributes often associated with leadership (e.g., independence, assertiveness, dominance). But even once a female leader proves her competence, she is often punished for failing to exhibit feminine attributes (e.g., warmth, kindness, sensitivity). Thus, while a man’s legitimacy as a leader depends on his effectiveness, a women's legitimacy requires both effectiveness and social appeal. How can women effectively manage the balance between perceptions of warmth and competence? Why is there such a strong moral-affective reaction against female leaders? What can organisations do to minimize the prevalence of stereotype-driven bias in their HRM practices?
- Conflict Management/Justice Restoration
- The experience of injustice and unfairness is inevitable in social, community, and organisational domains. However, it is often quite difficult to address such violations, partly because people have starkly different ideas about what is required to do “justice” (e.g., compensation, punishment, forgiveness, apologies, revenge, restorative conferencing). Why and under what conditions do people prefer one response over another? How can we predict when different responses will be deemed acceptable and legitimate by victims, offenders, and third-party observers? And what can organisational decision-makers do to minimize the divergence in opinions about justice?
- Ethical Decision-Making in Leadership
- Despite the apparent prevalence of greed and deception by organisational and political leaders, most people actually have both a keen understanding of what constitutes a fair and ethically appropriate decision and the desire to act in a fair/ethical manner. But even with both the knowledge and motivation, people still make objectively unethical decisions. In practice, it is difficult to remain vigilant in supressing the non-conscious biases that colour our decisions, biases that derive from cultural stereotypes, ideologies, and intergroup dynamics. How do these unintended biases undermine our attempts to behave fairly and ethically? What can we do to avoid these decision-making pitfalls, errors that ultimately undermine our ability to make effective and socially responsible decisions?
- Inter- and Intra-group Dynamics/Organisational Identification
- The beliefs, attitudes, and motivation of employees in organisations are affected by their level of organisational identification – the extent to which they define themselves as members of the collective group. How does identification affect reactions to threats, both intragroup (from within the organisation; e.g., deviance, betrayal, disrespect) and intergroup (e.g., competition, defamation)? What are the positive and negative consequences of such threats for the effectiveness of an organisation?
Publications
- Okimoto, Tyler G., Hornsey, Matthew J. and Wenzel, Michael (2019) The power of grassroots expressions of remorse for promoting intergroup forgiveness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 80 39-51. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2018.10.003
- Yates, Miriam S. and Okimoto, Tyler G. (2018) Changing beliefs about female leader advancement following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 194855061876639. doi:10.1177/1948550618766399
- Dat, Mylyn C. and Okimoto, Tyler G. (2018) Exploring new directions in self-forgiveness research: integrating self and other perspectives on moral repair. Social Justice Research, 31 2: 206-217. doi:10.1007/s11211-018-0308-7
- Dat, Mylyn C. and Okimoto, Tyler G. (2018) Exploring new directions in self-forgiveness research: integrating self and other perspectives on moral repair. Social Justice Research, 31 2: 206-217. doi:10.1007/s11211-018-0308-7
- van Doorn, Janne, Zeelenberg, Marcel, Breugelmans, Seger M., Berger, Sebastian and Okimoto, Tyler G. (2018) Prosocial consequences of third-party anger. Theory and Decision, 84 4: 585-599. doi:10.1007/s11238-017-9652-6
- Brescoll, Victoria L., Okimoto, Tyler G. and Vial, Andrea C. (2018) You've Come a Long Way…Maybe: How Moral Emotions Trigger Backlash Against Women Leaders. Journal of Social Issues, 74 1: 144-164. doi:10.1111/josi.12261
- Wenzel, Michael, Okimoto, Tyler G., Hornsey, Matthew J., Lawrence-Wood, Ellie and Coughlin, Anne-Marie (2017) The mandate of the collective: apology representativeness determines perceived sincerity and forgiveness in intergroup contexts. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43 6: 758-771. doi:10.1177/0146167217697093
- Wenzel, Michael, Lawrence-Wood, Ellie, Okimoto, Tyler G. and Hornsey, Matthew J. (2017) A long time coming: delays in collective apologies and their effects on sincerity and forgiveness. Political Psychology, 39 3: 649-666. doi:10.1111/pops.12421
- Zhu, Yunxia, Okimoto, Tyler G., Roan, Amanda and Xu, Henry (2017) Developing management student cultural fluency for the real world: a situated cultural learning approach. Education and Training, 59 4: 353-373. doi:10.1108/ET-03-2016-0059
- Hornsey, Matthew J., Okimoto, Tyler G. and Wenzel, Michael (2017) The appraisal gap: why victim and transgressor groups disagree on the need for a collective apology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 47 2: 135-147. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2279
Memberships
- Academy of Management
- Society for Personality and Social Psychology
- Society of Australasian Social Psychologists
- International Society for Justice Research
- Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
- Association for Psychological Science
Distinctions
- 2012 Early Career Contribution Award from the International Society for Justice Research
- 2011 Outstanding Author Contribution Award, Emerald Publishing
- 2010 Featured review in the American Association of University Women 2010 report: Why so few? Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (pp.81-87).
- 2006 Douglas and Katherine Fryer Thesis Fellowship in Organizational Psychology
Major research grants
Title | Agency | Year | Amount |
---|---|---|---|
Identifying and resolving challenges to the effectiveness of collective apologies (with Associate Professor Michael Wenzel & Professor Matthew Hornsey) | ARC Discovery | 2013 | Undisclosed |
Ingroup bias in the enactment of fairness in organisations | UQ New Staff Start Up Grant | 2012 | Undisclosed |
Why so few women in upper management? Impression management, social facilitation, and the enactment of stereotypical behaviour | UQ Early Career Research Grant | 2012 | Undisclosed |