The devil without and within: A conceptual model of social cognitive processes whereby discrimination leads stigmatized minorities to become discouraged workers PETER A. HESLIN 1 * ,† , MYRTLE P. BELL 2 * ,† AND PINAR O. FLETCHER 3 1 School of Management, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia 2 Department of Management, University of Texas–Arlington, Arlington, Texas, U.S.A. 3 Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Summary In contrast to the substantial literatures on job loss, underemployment, and re-employment, management scholars have paid scant attention to “discouraged workers,” defined as those who want to work but have ceased looking for work because of labor market-related reasons such as discrimination. Drawing together the labor economics category of discouraged workers, the diversity literature on employment discrimination, and social cognitive research on careers, we model social cognitive mechanisms whereby discrimination can lead stigmatized minorities to become discouraged workers. We show how direct effects of discrimination (the “devil without”) can be compounded by its indirect impacts—through minority socialization and identity, struggling role models, learned helplessness, and low job search self-efficacy (collectively, the “devil within”)—to lead stigmatized minorities to become discouraged workers. Our model of insidious intra- and inter-personal dynamics that can amplify and sustain the demoralization and exclusion that stems from discrimination has implications for researchers, organizations, and those concerned with helping discouraged workers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Keywords: discrimination; diversity; self-efficacy; unemployment; discouraged workers; learned helplessness; careers 1980: “...a minimum of one out of every four black workers are jobless today—which is equal to the unemployed rate for the nation at the peak of the Great Depression in the 1930s.” (Hill, 1981; cited in Bowman, 1991, p. 158) 1990: “Black workers are more frequently displaced from jobs during economic recession, are jobless for longer periods, become more discouraged in job search, drop out of the labor force more often, and experience greater economic hardship as a result of joblessness.” (Bowman, 1991, p. 156) 2009: “Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions—34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population.” (Haynes, 2009, p. A01) *Correspondence to: Peter A. Heslin, School of Management, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. E-mail: heslin@unsw.edu.au Myrtle P. Bell, Department of Management, University of Texas–Arlington, Arlington, Texas, U.S.A. E-mail: mpbell@uta.edu † The first two authors contributed equally to this manuscript, so authorship order was decided by a coin toss. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 31 August 2010 Revised 15 December 2011, Accepted 09 March 2012 Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. (2012) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.1795