Ironic Egalitarianism: When hierarchy-attenuating motives increase hierarchy-enhancing beliefs

Abstract A growing number of businesses are focusing on diversity and inclusion efforts. Amidst this recent interest, scholars have sought to understand the ideologies that perpetuate inequality, concentrating primarily on the hierarchy-enhancing ideologies that antiegalitarians leverage to maintain inequality. However, we suggest that the hierarchy-enhancing beliefs typically associated with antiegalitarians (e.g., stereotypes, meritocracy) sometimes appeal to people at the opposite end of the ideological pole: egalitarians. Across four preregistered studies, we demonstrate that when hierarchy-enhancing myths may support practices aimed at promoting organizational diversity, egalitarians increasingly endorse these myths that they typically reject. When essentialism (Study 1), the Protestant work ethic (Study 2), and gender stereotypes (Study 4) supported organizational diversity, egalitarians increasingly endorsed these beliefs. They also exhibited scientific skepticism when findings jeopardized affirmative action efforts (Study 3). These findings illustrate that, ironically, pro-diversity goals can encourage egalitarians to mobilize and endorse beliefs that are typically associated with antiegalitarians and the justification of inequality.