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of British Columbia in Canada, and Philip Oreopou- los of the University of Toronto in Canada recently released their working paper "A Community College Instructor Like Me: Race and Ethnicity Interactions in the Classroom." Jochen Menges Many studies have found that the academic perfor- mance of students in minority groups—such as African American, Latino, or Native American—often lags behind that of their white counterparts. However, this paper indicates that when minorities take courses taught by an instructor who shares their ethnic background, that discrepancy is cut in half. Using data they gathered on approximately 30,000 students at De Anza Com- munity College in California, the researchers find that minority students are 2.9 percent less likely to drop the course, 2.8 percent more likely to pass, and 3.2 percent more likely to score a B or better when taught by an instructor of their own ethnicity. n Age-diverse workplaces may foster discontent—Age diversity in the workplace may cause employees to think about changing jobs more often—and it could also indirectly reduce their performance, according to a study by Florian Kunze of the University of St. Gallen in Switzer- land and Jochen Menges of Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. While the research- ers found no direct link between age diversity and performance, they discovered that employees at compa- nies with an equal mix of younger and older workers reported feeling "anger, fear, and disgust" in the work- place. Kunze and Menges speculate that such negative emotions could harm a company's overall performance. Older employees most often have different behaviors, preferences, values, and memories than their younger counterparts, says Menges. "These differences can lead to group formation within the workplace," he adds, "which in turn creates age discrimination and potentially leads to misunderstandings that foster negative emotions." If employees express their feelings about age differ- ences in unconstructive ways, it can only make things worse, the researchers say. They note that managers at age-diverse companies can address—and even pre- vent—age-related discord by establishing a culture that embraces age diversity and offering channels for employees to express their views in constructive ways, such as a system that allows employees to submit com- plaints privately. A podcast of Menges discussing the research is available at www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/interactive/expert_ comment/2011/menges_age.html. n Why minorities pay more for poor treatment—A study by two California professors suggests that African American consumers may actually pay more for goods and services when they are insulted than they would otherwise—and that they pay even more than their Cau- casian counterparts. The research was conducted by Aarti Ivanic, assistant professor of marketing at the University of San Diego's School of Business Administration; and Jennifer Overbeck, assistant professor of management and organization along with Joseph Nunes, associate professor of marketing at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles. In one experiment, Caucasians and African Americans rated their interest in purchasing a set of headphones; in another, they were asked to do the same with a luxury hotel upgrade. In a neutral situation, both groups showed equal levels of interest in the products; but when negative racial stereotypes were explicitly introduced, Afri- can American participants were willing to pay more for the products than either Cau- casian participants or other African Ameri- can participants who had not been made aware of racial stereotypes. African American participants were willing to pay more only when faced with poor treatment and explicit negative racial content. The reason, the research- ers explain, is that they feel compelled to assert their social standing by paying more for a product. However, implicit racial content, positive treatment with racial content, and poor treatment with no racial content did not produce the same effect. In another study, the researchers found that the more strongly participants identified with and took pride in their race, the less willing they were to overpay. Aarti Ivanic Jennifer Overbeck Joseph Nunes "Status, Race, and Money: The Impact of Racial Hier- archy on Willingness-to-Pay" is forthcoming in Psycho- logical Science. BizEd January/February 2012 53