How Black are Lakisha and Jamal? Racial Perceptions from Names Used in Correspondence Audit Studies

Abstract

Online correspondence audit studies have emerged as the primary method to examine racial discrimination. Although audits use distinctive names to signal race, few studies scientifically examine data regarding the perception of race from names. Different names treated as black or white may be perceived in heterogeneous ways. I conduct a survey experiment that asks respondents to identify the race they associate with a series of names. I alter the first names given to each respondent and inclusion of last names. Names more commonly given by highly educated black mothers (e.g., Jalen and Nia) are less likely to be perceived as black than names given by less educated black mothers (e.g., DaShawn and Tanisha). The results suggest that a large body of social science evidence on racial discrimination operates under a misguided assumption that all black names are alike and the findings from correspondence audits are likely sensitive to name selection.

Criminal records and college admissions: A modified experimental audit

“…In this context, we directly signaled race by selecting either “Black or African American” or “White,” although we could not directly observe how it was used in their deliberations. Importantly for our purposes, the names of our testers were not particularly indicative of a specific race group and were unlikely to convey significant race signals on their own (see where we followed the guidance of Gaddis []), so we randomly assigned race to each tester pair–college combination regardless of the actual race of participants. That is, the same tester pairs both checked “White” at one subsample of colleges and both checked “Black” at another subsample of colleges.…”

Taste or statistics? A correspondence study of ethnic, racial and religious labour market discrimination in Germany

“…Further, it is customary to include letters of reference from previous employers and, importantly, a photograph of the applicant. The photo requirement makes it possible to signal racial phenotype directly rather than using the indirect and imprecise signal of typical minority names (see Gaddis 2017).…”

What Race Is Lacey? Intersecting Perceptions of Racial Minority Status and Social Class*

“…In fact, several studies find that uncommon and Black-sounding names are most frequently given by mothers with low levels of education (Fryer and Levitt, 2004;Lieberson and Bell, 1992). Gaddis (2017) found that Black names were perceived as more Black when the mother had a lower educational level, compared to a higher educational level. Black names given by highly educated mothers were less likely to be perceived as indicating Blackness (Gaddis, 2017).…”