Is white always the standard? Using replication to revisit and extend what we know about the leadership prototype

More on why Lakisha and Jamal didn’t get interviews: Extending previous findings through a reproducibility study

“…Consequently, it appears that strong qualifications may benefit female applicants disproportionately. Furthermore, Obenauer and Kalsher (2022) suggested that when engaged in controlled processing, it's possible that corrections for bias may be imperfect such that traditionally marginalized candidates could be evaluated more favorably. In such a case, this could result in females benefiting more from resume quality than their male counterparts.…”

“…Building on Lord and Maher's (1993) work on information processing, prior research has argued that discriminatory outcomes are most likely to occur when evaluators draw on previously developed prototypes in the evaluation process (Rosette et al, 2008). Recent research has attempted to explain null findings in discrimination research by arguing that when evaluators are engaged in controlled processing, their reliance upon prototypes is reduced (e.g., Obenauer & Kalsher, 2022), but such explanations have been speculative in nature. The current research demonstrates that in a context where evaluators were motivated to engage in controlled processing due to the presence of objective evaluation criteria (i.e., when job requirements were clearly listed), discriminatory effects were weaker than in contexts where no such criteria were published and evaluators may have relied more on automatic processing.…”

“…Prototype development and recall takes place through automatic processing, where the person is not engaged in critical thinking or analysis (Lord & Smith, 1983). In organizational contexts, when presented with a stimulus, individuals may subconsciously draw upon categorized prototypes that will influence tasks such as evaluation and selection (Obenauer & Kalsher, 2022; Rosette et al, 2008; Ubaka et al, 2022). Consequently, a first name alone may be sufficient for prototype retrieval.…”

“…Recently, however, accurately identifying discriminatory effects in experimental research has become more complex. For example, recent replications of Rosette et al (2008) conducted by two different research teams both failed to find evidence of White leaders receiving more favorable evaluations than their non-White counterparts (Obenauer & Kalsher, 2022; Ubaka et al, 2022). The misalignment between these recent findings and ongoing evidence of workplace discrimination in the real world suggests that current participants in experimental research may be modifying their behavior in response to perceptions of social desirability.…”

Polyculturalism research should develop further before recommending organizational implementation strategies

“…Finally, it is important to recognize that in the United States, White men tend to be overrepresented in leadership roles (Obenauer & Kalsher, 2022; Rosette et al, 2008). Therefore, if organizational leaders embrace the idea of prioritizing connections in their DEI strategies, such a change has the potential to be perceived as members of a historically privileged group shifting the emphasis of DEI efforts away from acknowledging and addressing historical inequities.…”