ABSTRACT
During his presidential campaign in 2008, Barack Obama noted that his first name,Barack, was given to him by his mother, and that his middle name, Hussein, was “given to me by someone who never thought I would run for president.” Although this was meant to be a joke, it reflected the fact that many of his competitors were trying to play into stereotypes that voters might have regarding Arabs and Muslims by emphasizing his middle name at every opportunity.1 A stereotype presumes that some person possesses certain individual characteristics based on their sex or membership in a racial, ethnic, or age group. That is, someone might assume that Muslims or women or older workers are “all alike.” They then employ these prejudicial misperceptions in making decisions that unfairly harm members of these groups and limit organizational effectiveness.
