Race and ethnicity in the workplace: spotlighting the perspectives of historically stigmatized groups.

Racial and ethnic identity matter and are salient for people in the workplace--a place where people spend a substantial amount of their time. This special issue brings the workplace into the domain of racial and ethnic minority psychology. It also brings to the study of the workplace a relatively neglected perspective: that of people from historically stigmatized racial and ethnic groups. Though there is, of course, need for more work with different themes, outcomes, and populations, this special issue takes us an important step in the direction of understanding better and giving voice to the experiences of racial and ethnic minorities in the workplace.

Intentions to initiate mentoring relationships: understanding the impact of race, proactivity, feelings of deprivation, and relationship roles.

The authors used a within-subjects experiment to examine the following influences on intentions to initiate informal mentorship: race similarity (RS), proactivity, feelings of race-related fraternal relative deprivation (RD), and roles in the potential mentoring dyads (roles). The authors instructed 126 White participants to assume the roles of upperclassmen or freshmen, provided them with the profiles of 12 potential protégés or mentors, and asked them to indicate their intentions to initiate mentorship. The authors found significant main effects of RS and proactivity, and a significant interaction effect between RS and proactivity. RD moderated the significant main effects. Roles also moderated the significant main effects and the interaction between RS and RD. The findings add to the literature of diversified mentoring and RD.