What’s Wrong with the Online Echo Chamber: A Motivated Reasoning Account

In this ‘age of information’, some worry that we get our news from online ‘echo chambers’, news feeds on our social media accounts that contain information from like-minded sources. Filtering our information in this way seems prima facie problematic from an epistemic perspective. I vindicate this intuition by offering an explanation of what is wrong with online echo chambers that appeals to a particular kind of motivated reasoning, or bias due to one’s interests. This sort of bias affects, not which evidence one is exposed to, but how one makes use of the evidence that one has, on the basis of one’s interests. I argue that consulting an online echo chamber often facilitates and amplifies this bias. I then draw some general conclusions about the potential downside of having ready access to so much information.     

Barriers to Women's Career Success: Human Capital, Career Choices, Structural Determinants, or Simply Sex Discrimination

Cet article aborde la question des évolutions divergentes de carrière attribuables au sexe chez les salariés britanniques. Des données ont été recueillies par questionnaires auprès de 457 d'entre eux pour évaluer plusieurs des explications apportées aux différences de salaire et de niveau hiérarchique entre hommes et femmes. L'importance relative de la discrimination due au sexe a été comparée à d'autres variables, à savoir: les dimensions de la personnalité, les qualités humaines utiles pour le poste, les aspects démographiques, le choix de carrière, les forces économiques du marché du travail et la structure des organisations. Les résultats ont montré que ces facteurs rendaient compte d'une part importante de la variance de la carrière, mais que plus de 55% des différences dans la réussite professionnelle des hommes et des femmes pouvaient être attribuées à la discrimination sexuelle.
This paper examines the gender gap in career success of men and women in the British labour force. Questionnaire data were collected from 457 British employees to assess several explanations for the gender differences in salaries and managerial level. The relative importance of sex discrimination was compared to alternative explanations, including: personality characteristics, job-relevant human capital attributes, demographic characteristics, career choices, labour market economic forces, and structural features of the organisations. The results revealed that although these factors explained a large amount of the variance in career success, over 55% of the gender gap in career success was attributed to sex discrimination.