# Inclusion and Diversity in Work Groups: A Review and Model for Future Research *Shore · Power & Equity, Culture & Context · Journal of Management · 2011 · Open access* The paper that gave the inclusion construct its now-standard definition and pulled it apart from diversity, with which it had often been conflated. Shore and colleagues draw on Brewer's optimal distinctiveness theory to argue that inclusion is the simultaneous satisfaction of two human needs that ordinarily pull against each other: belongingness (acceptance, being treated as an insider, being part of the group) and uniqueness (being valued precisely for what makes one different, rather than being required to assimilate). Their two-by-two is the paper's most-used device: high belonging with low uniqueness is assimilation (you are in, but only if you suppress your difference); low belonging with high uniqueness is differentiation (your difference is noted but you are held at the margin); low on both is exclusion; and only high on both is inclusion, where a person is both accepted and valued as themselves. Diversity, in this framing, is merely the presence of difference; inclusion is whether that difference can be brought into the group without penalty. The relevance to psychological safety is close and largely under-remarked. The uniqueness half of the construct is essentially an interpersonal-risk claim: to contribute something that marks you as different (a dissenting read, an unfamiliar way of working, an identity the group does not share) is to expose yourself to exactly the risks of being seen as ignorant, intrusive, or deviant that psychological safety governs. A group can be high in generic safety yet still exact assimilation as the price of belonging, which is why inclusion and safety are related but not identical: safety asks whether it is safe to speak, inclusion asks whether it is safe to speak as oneself. This distinction matters directly for the equity and neurodiversity questions elsewhere in this corpus, where the people most able to offer a divergent account are also the ones for whom uniqueness carries the highest cost, so that an environment which rhetorically prizes candour can still structurally punish difference. The paper connects the belongingness and uniqueness threads to Ely and Thomas's (in this corpus) integration-and-learning perspective and to Hewlin's work on the facades of conformity that employees adopt when uniqueness feels unsafe. - **This page:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/shore-et-al-2011/ - **View the source paper:** https://www.unispital-basel.ch/en/dam/jcr:38bef8ec-932b-4039-8378-e8df5d8253c8/Shore%20et%20al._2011_inclusion.pdf - **Interactive map:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/?mode=papers&node=shore-et-al-2011 ## Connected concepts (11) - [Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/edmondson-1999.md) (paper) - [Cultural Diversity at Work: The Effects of Diversity Perspectives on Work Group Processes and Outcomes](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/ely-thomas-2001.md) (paper) - [Men and Women of the Corporation](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/kanter-1977.md) (paper) - [An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence: Issues That Employees Don't Communicate Upward and Why](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/milliken-morrison-hewlin-2003.md) (paper) - [Making it Safe: The Effects of Leader Inclusiveness and Professional Status on Psychological Safety and Improvement Efforts in Health Care Teams](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/nembhard-edmondson-2006.md) (paper) - [Straight Talking: The Sociolinguistics of Heterosexuality](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/cameron-2014.md) (paper) - [Diversity & Performance](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-54-diversity-and-performance.md) - [PS & Neurodiversity](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-and-neurodiversity.md) - [PS in Diverse Groups](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/the-foundations-of-psychological-safety-in-diverse-groups.md) - [PS Should Support DEI](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-should-support-dei-not-replace-it.md) - [Accessibility & PS](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/accessibility-a-road-to-psychological-safety.md)