Hiring Discrimination Against Arab Minorities: Interactions Between Prejudice and Job Characteristics

Individuals of Arab descent have increasingly experienced prejudice and employment discrimination. This study used the social identity paradigm to investigate whether greater Arab identification of applicants led to hiring discrimination and whether job characteristics and raters' prejudice moderated this effect. One hundred forty-one American and 153 Dutch participants rated résumés on job suitability. Résumés with Arab name and affiliations negatively influenced job suitability ratings, but only when job cognitive demands and external client contact were limited. Within the Dutch sample job suitability rating of Arab applicants was lowest when Dutch raters' implicit prejudice was high. As expected, no effects of explicit prejudice were found: discrimination may operate in subtle ways, depending on the combined effect of applicant, job, and rater characteristics. Further research and implications for employment-related decision making, such as anonymous résumé-sifting, are discussed.     

At the doorstep to employment: Discrimination against immigrants as a function of applicant ethnicity,job type,and raters' prejudice

This study examined the impact of applicant ethnicity, job type, and prejudice on evaluation biases and intentions to interview in an experimental simulation. We suggest that bias and discrimination are more likely when foreign applicants who belong to disliked ethnic groups apply for jobs that require high interpersonal skills, and when raters are prejudiced against immigrants. Subjects were Swiss university students who evaluated Swiss, Spanish, and Kosovo Albanian fictitious applicants. Foreign applicants were second‐generation immigrants, i.e., Swiss‐born descendants of immigrants. Thus, all applicants had similar schooling and language proficiencies but differed with respect to ethnicity. As predicted, discrimination was only observed for members of the disliked ethnic group (Kosovo Albanian) and not for members of the well‐accepted group (Spanish). Moreover, this discrimination was only apparent when applying for a job requiring high interpersonal skills and not when applying for a job requiring high technical skills. Symbolic prejudice towards second‐generation immigrants interacted with applicant ethnicity and job type to affect evaluations of foreign applicants: Persons high in symbolic prejudice devalued foreign applicants belonging to the disliked group but only when applying for a job requiring high interpersonal skills. Overt prejudice was unrelated to evaluations and intentions to interview. These results suggest that discrimination against immigrants is highly specific, targeting only members of certain ethnic groups who apply for certain types of jobs. Moreover, evaluation biases may be more apparent in raters who are prejudiced. Thus, our results support the notion that discrimination for employment results from a complex interaction between characteristics of the applicant, the job, and the rater.     

Double Jeopardy Upon Resumé Screening: When Achmed Is Less Employable Than Aïsha

Applicants belong to multiple categories (e.g., male, ethnic minority) and a complex set of factors affects category activation and inhibition when making hiring decisions. Two field experiments with recruiters who regularly engage in resumé screening showed that the role of multiple categories (applicants’ ethnicity and sex) in discrimination depended on job type and prejudice. Specifically, in both low‐ and high‐demand (i.e., complex) jobs, Arab women were rated more favorably than Arab men, particularly when considering levels of client contact. Across both studies, recruiters high in explicit ethnic prejudice were discriminatory only when applicants’ job qualifications fit the job position less, lending support for the attributional‐ambiguity effect. Implicit attitudes did not play a strong role. Our study findings point to the complex nature of multiple categorization effects in the hiring process. Implications are considered as to how to avert hiring discrimination during resumé screening.     

The effect of self‐regulated decision making on career path and major‐related career choice satisfaction

The present research examined the influence of self‐regulated decision making on satisfaction in career path (college major for Study 1, job for Study 2) and major‐related career choice. Results indicate a full mediating effect of fit in the relationship between self‐regulated decision making and satisfaction in career path. Self‐regulated decision making also influenced major–job congruence via satisfaction with a participant's college major. Findings suggest that individuals who possess self‐regulatory ability in decision‐making contexts were more likely to choose majors and jobs of good fit, experience satisfaction from their career decisions, and choose careers relevant to their college majors.     

Age Discrimination in the Evaluation of Job Applicants

This study investigated the nature of age discrimination against older job applicants. One hundred fifty‐six participants (102 students; 54 organization based) evaluated a hypothetical job applicant's (aged 33–66 years) work‐related competences and likelihood of being hired. Applicant age affected hiring decisions for both samples where there was a preference for hiring applicants aged 42–48 years. Applicants at both the older and younger ends of the continuum were less likely to be hired, with the oldest applicants (over 54 years) being the least likely to be hired. Although the applicants' age negatively affected evaluations of their trainability and sociability, the effect of applicant age on hiring evaluations was not mediated by these work‐related competencies, suggesting that age discrimination occurs via direct bias against older workers.     

Age differences in discrimination of simulated single-formant frequency transitions

We studied auditory discrimination of simulated single-formant frequency transitions that resembled portions of certain speech consonants. Significant age differences in transition discrimination occurred; both children and older adults required larger acoustic differences between transitions for discrimination than did teenagers/young adults. Longer transitions were more easily discriminated than shorter transitions by all listeners, and there were no differences between discriminations of rising and falling transitions. Teens/young adults and older adults, but not children, required larger frequency differences to discriminate frequency transitions followed by a steady-state sound than for transitions alone. There were also age differences in discrimination of steady-state sounds. These developmental-perceptual differences may help explain why children and older adults who have good pure-tone sensitivity may experience difficulty in understanding speech.     

The Interactive Effects of Race,Gender, and Job Type on Job Suitability Ratings and Selection Decisions1

The present study examined the main and interactive effects of race, gender, and job type on job suitability ratings and selection decisions. Consistent with the double‐advantage additive effects model of race and gender, highly educated Black women were rated as more suitable for jobs and more likely to be selected for jobs requiring high levels of cognitive ability than were comparably educated White men, White women, or Black men. These results suggest that selection decisions might be jointly determined by race, gender, and the nature of a job. The implications of these findings for overcoming biases in employment‐related decision making are discussed.     

Interviewers’ Moods and Evaluations of Job Applicants: The Role of Applicant Qualifications1

Participants were induced to experience positive affect, negative affect, or no shift in current affect. Then they conducted a simulated job interview with an applicant (actually an assistant) who appeared to be highly qualified, ambiguously qualified, or unqualified for the job in question. It was predicted that interviewers’ moods would exert the strongest influence on ratings of the applicant when this person's qualifications were ambiguous. Results offered partial support for this hypothesis. When the applicant's qualifications were ambiguous, participants induced to experience positive affect rated this person higher on several dimensions than participants induced to experience negative affect. When the applicant appeared to be highly qualified for the job, in contrast, interviewers’ moods had no significant effect on their ratings of this person. Contrary to expectations, however, interviewers’ moods significantly influenced ratings of the applicant when this person appeared to be unqualified for the job in question. In this condition, participants induced to experience positive affect actually rated the applicant lower than those induced to experience negative affect. Several mechanisms that may have contributed to these results (e. g., tendencies toward mood maintenance, adoption of a positive-test strategy) are examined. In addition, practical implications of these findings for conducting job interviews and for the use of various impression-management techniques by applicants are discussed.     

Volunteer Experience May Not Bridge Gaps in Employment

This study investigated whether volunteer experience compensates for a gap in employment that occurs either early or late in one's career. Recruiters (n = 82) evaluated resumes of fictitious applicants with either early or late employment gaps, plus one of three types of volunteer experience: career‐related, career‐unrelated, and none. For applicants with an employment gap, resumes with volunteer experience – regardless of its career‐relatedness – were not rated significantly higher than resumes without volunteer experience. Although not statistically significant, resumes with late employment gaps were rated highest when they had career‐related volunteer experience and lowest when they had no volunteer experience. In line with human capital theory, applicants late in their career were rated higher than applicants early in their career.     

INTERVIEWER DECISIONS AS A FUNCTION OF APPLICANT RACE, APPLICANT QUALITY AND INTERVIEWER PREJUDICE

This study investigated the impact of the racial attitudes of interviewers, applicant race, and applicant quality on the ratings given applicants. This study used a posttest-only control group approach which was analyzed by a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial ANOVA design. Subjects were 176 white business administration students from a large urban university.
Videotapes of simulated job interviews were produced to control applicant quality and applicant race. A black male and a white male each role-played both a high and a low quality applicant. The main effect for applicant quality was significant, accounting for 50% of the variance in applicant ratings. The main effect for race was significant but not in the predicted direction. Black applicants were rated higher than white applicants. While high quality applicants were rated highly regardless of race, the low quality black applicant was rated higher than the comparably performing white applicant. The interaction of race and interviewers' level of prejudice was significant but not in the predicted direction. Highly prejudiced subjects rated black applicants higher than white applicants. The implications of these results for further research were discussed.     

Impact of Applicant Disability on Selection: The Role of Disability Type, Physical Attractiveness, and Proximity

A laboratory experiment contrasting disabled and non-disabled job applicants assessed the impact of disability type, physical attractiveness, and proximity of the job opening to the decision maker. Physically disabled applicants were rated higher than either non-disabled or mentally disabled applicants. However, some evidence was found of a bias against disabled applicants, particularly the mentally disabled, when the position involved was in close proximity to the decision maker.     

Vicarious moral licensing: the influence of others' past moral actions on moral behavior

This article investigates the effect of others' prior nonprejudiced behavior on an individual's subsequent behavior. Five studies supported the hypothesis that people are more willing to express prejudiced attitudes when their group members' past behavior has established nonprejudiced credentials. Study 1a showed that participants who were told that their group was more moral than similar other groups were more willing to describe a job as better suited for Whites than for African Americans. In Study 1b, when given information on group members' prior nondiscriminatory behavior (selecting a Hispanic applicant in a prior task), participants subsequently gave more discriminatory ratings to the Hispanic applicant for a position stereotypically suited for majority members (Whites). In Study 2, moral self-concept mediated the effect of others' prior nonprejudiced actions on a participant's subsequent prejudiced behavior such that others' past nonprejudiced actions enhanced the participant's moral self-concept, and this inflated moral self-concept subsequently drove the participant's prejudiced ratings of a Hispanic applicant. In Study 3, the moderating role of identification with the credentialing group was tested. Results showed that participants expressed more prejudiced attitudes toward a Hispanic applicant when they highly identified with the group members behaving in nonprejudiced manner. In Study 4, the credentialing task was dissociated from the participants' own judgmental task, and, in addition, identification with the credentialing group was manipulated rather than measured. Consistent with prior studies, the results showed that participants who first had the opportunity to view an in-group member's nonprejudiced hiring decision were more likely to reject an African American man for a job stereotypically suited for majority members. These studies suggest a vicarious moral licensing effect.     

Comparative judgments with missing information: a regression and process tracing analysis

We had participants decide which one of two applicants was better qualified for a scholarship. They also judged the difference between them (comparative judgment). The applicants were described by features (grades) in different subjects (dimensions). The grades on some dimensions were missing (unique dimensions) for an alternative while all the grades were available on other dimensions (common dimensions). In a conventional regression analysis, we found that decision makers gave more weight to dimensions when they were common than when they were unique. However, this commensurability effect was limited to medium important dimensions and did not apply to dimensions of high or low importance. We also observed how participants retrieved information for the choice alternatives and analysed how importance and commensurability are reflected in the processing prior to the decision. Features on more important or common dimensions were inspected earlier than features on less important or unique dimensions. Participants preferred dimensional transitions and inspected features on unique dimensions longer than their common counterparts. This finding suggested that participants used inferences when features were missing. We propose an outline of a decision heuristic to describe decision making with missing information.     

Prejudice and Enforcement of Workforce Homogeneity as Explanations for Employment Discrimination1

We examined the effects of subtle and blatant prejudice and the enforcement of workforce homogeneity on employment discrimination in an experimental simulation. German participants who were advised to maintain a homogeneous (i.e., German) workforce, as hypothesized, selected fewer foreign applicants for a job interview than did participants who did not receive this advice. An interaction qualified this main effect, such that subtly prejudiced participants reacted to the advice to maintain a homogeneous workforce, but blatantly prejudiced and nonprejudiced individuals did not. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.     

The Impact of Gender on the Review of the Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study

The purpose of this study was to determine someof the factors that influence outside reviewers andsearch committee members when they are reviewingcurricula vitae, particularly with respect to the gender of the name on the vitae. The participants inthis study were 238 male and female academicpsychologists who listed a university address in the1997 Directory of the American PsychologicalAssociation. They were each sent one of four versions of acurriculum vitae (i.e., female job applicant, male jobapplicant, female tenure candidate, and male tenurecandidate), along with a questionnaire and aself-addressed stamped envelope. All the curricula vitaeactually came from a real-life scientist at twodifferent stages in her career, but the names werechanged to traditional male and female names. Althoughan exclusively between-groups design was used to avoidsparking genderconscious responding, the resultsindicate that the participants were clearly able todistinguish between the qualifications of the jobapplicants versus the tenure candidates, as evidenced bysuggesting higher starting salaries, increasedlikelihood of offering the tenure candidates a job,granting them tenure, and greater respect for theirteaching, research, and service records. Both men andwomen were more likely to vote to hire a male jobapplicant than a female job applicant with an identicalrecord. Similarly, both sexes reported that the male job applicant had done adequate teaching,research, and service experience compared to the femalejob applicant with an identical record. In contrast,when men and women examined the highly competitive curriculum vitae of the real-life scientist whohad gotten early tenure, they were equally likely totenure the male and female tenure candidates and therewas no difference in their ratings of their teaching, research, and service experience. There was nosignificant main effect for the quality of theinstitution or professional rank on selectivity inhiring and tenuring decisions. The results of this study indicate a gender bias for both men and womenin preference for male job applicants.     

Age Bias in Laboratory and Field Settings: A Meta‐Analytic Investigation1

A meta‐analytic review of age‐discrimination research from laboratory and field settings revealed a significant, yet modest overall effect size with younger applicants and workers evaluated more positively than older applicants and workers. The present predictions and findings were compared with those from previous meta‐analytic investigations by Kite and Johnson (1988) and by Finkelstein, Burke, and Raju (1995). A number of significant moderational relationships were revealed, including negative linear relationships between the relative generalizability of the research (in terms of participants, setting, and stimulus materials) and effect size. In addition, the type of design used (between‐subjects vs. within‐subject) and the specific type of dependent measures used to evaluate applicants and workers were found to significantly moderate effect size.     

Implicit and explicit age cues influence the evaluation of job applications

In the hiring process, older job seekers are often at a disadvantage when compared to younger job seekers: They receive less callbacks to applications, less invitations to job interviews, and fewer job offers. This phenomenon has often been demonstrated by varying explicit cues such as the date of birth. Less studied, but also influential are implicit age cues (e.g., age-stereotypic characteristics or activities in applicant profiles). Across a series of three studies, we addressed both forms of age cues in job applications. We explored the influence of explicit age information (20 years or 60 years) and implicit age profiles (age-neutral, young, or old job-relevant characteristics) on hiring decisions in hypothetical scenarios and tested the effect of a short anti-discrimination prompt. Applicants’ age (i.e., the explicit age cue) reduced the hiring likelihood ratings irrespective of implicit age profiles. The implicit age profiles influenced the hypothetical hiring decisions by their age association and by the stereotypical relevance of individual characteristics (e.g., charismatic as an age-neutral characteristic is stereotypically relevant for a leadership position). Applicants with an implicit old profile were less likely hired than applicants with an implicit young profile when the hiring goal was to increase profit and when no particular job status was specified. The anti-discrimination prompt significantly reduced age discrimination. Ageism in the hiring process is not only a matter of explicit age cues, but also of implicit age cues. Raising awareness for ageism and prompting to disregard age could well diminish discriminatory behavior also in real hiring decisions.     

Effects of Seeking Accommodation and Disability on Preemployment Evaluations

Within the context of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, we examined the impact of requesting accommodation and having a disability on ratings of applicant suitability for employment. Psychology students and human resources (HR) professionals reviewed application materials from a hypothetical job candidate and then evaluated the candidate's qualifications for the job. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 5 conditions that consisted of a candidate seeking or not seeking accommodation partially crossed with disability type (none, physical, or psychiatric). Three potential covariates were considered: HR employment status, and knowledge of and attitude toward the ADA. Results showed that asking for reasonable accommodation lowered suitability ratings, even when controlling for HR employment status, the only significant covariate. Also, a candidate with a psychiatric disability was given significantly lower employment suitability ratings than was a candidate with no disability. Implications for applicants with disabilities and employers are discussed.     

When Accomplishments Come Back to Haunt You: The Negative Effect of Competence Signals on Women's Performance Evaluations

This research explores the possibility that the very accomplishments that are critical to success during the hiring process (e.g., educational attainment, promotion history) can lead to a drop in future performance evaluations for women. We theorized that evaluators may see such competence signals as a threat to the traditional gender hierarchy, which leads to a negative bias when evaluating women's on‐the‐job performance. In Study 1, we examined this hypothesis among commanding officers in the U.S. military, who gave lower performance ratings to female subordinates whose pay grade approached their own. The same was not true for male subordinates. Studies 2, 3a, and 3b experimentally tested the boundary conditions of this effect using two additional competence signals (educational attainment and past career successes) and 2 different populations. Across these studies, we replicated the negative relationship between competence signal strength and performance evaluations for female subordinates but only under conditions in which the evaluator would be particularly likely to experience gender hierarchy threat. Specifically, it emerged when the evaluator was male and high social‐dominance oriented and when the female subordinate's objective on‐the‐job performance was high. Finally, Study 3a demonstrated how organizations can mitigate this negative bias by using objective (rather than subjective) performance evaluations.