Racial Identity as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Perceived Applicant Similarity and Hiring Decisions

O’Leary, Brian; Durham, Candace R.; Weathington, Bart L.; Cothran, D. Lisa; Cunningham, Christopher J. L.

doi:10.1177/0095798408323385

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Researchers have acknowledged that the use of all-White raters in prior research makes it difficult to fully understand the complexity of rater bias (Lee et al. , 2015; O'Leary et al. , 2009; for a noted exception, see Goldberg, 2005).…”

Section: Procedure Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our sample of Black HR managers, while comprising only 20 individuals, is commensurate in size with the actual percentage of Blacks in managerial positions in the United States (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Researchers have acknowledged that the use of all-White raters in prior research makes it difficult to fully understand the complexity of rater bias (Lee et al, 2015;O'Leary et al, 2009; for a noted exception, see Goldberg, 2005). We address this limitation by also examining Black HR managers, but we fully understand the challenges associated with identifying diverse managerial populations.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Résumé screening heuristic outcomes: an examination of hiring manager evaluation bias

Moore

Livingston

Susskind

2022

EDI

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PurposeHiring managers commonly rely on system-justifying motives and attitudes during résumé screening. Given the prevalent use of modern résumé formats (e.g. LinkedIn) that include not only an applicant's credentials but also headshot photographs, visible sources of information such as an applicant's race are also revealed while a hiring manager simultaneously evaluates a candidate's suitability. As a result, such screening is likely to activate evaluation bias. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of a hiring manager's perceptions of race-system justification, that is, support for the status quo in relations between Black and White job candidates in reinforcing or mitigating hiring bias related to in-group and out-group membership during résumé screening.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from system justification theory (SJT) in a pre-selection context, in an experimental study involving 174 human resource managers, the authors tested two boundary conditions of the expected relationship between hiring manager and job candidate race on candidate ratings: (1) a hiring manager's affirmative action (AA) attitudes and system-justifying attitudes and (2) a job candidate's manipulated suitability for a position. This approach enabled us to juxtapose the racial composition of hiring manager–job candidate dyads under conditions in which the job candidate's race and competency for a posted position were manipulated to examine the conditions under which White and Black hiring managers are likely to make biased evaluations. The authors largely replicated these findings in two follow-up studies with 261 students and 361 online raters.FindingsThe authors found that information on a candidate's objective suitability for a job resulted in opposite-race positive bias among Black evaluators and same-race positive bias among White evaluators in study 1 alone. Conversely, positive attitudes toward AA policies resulted in in-group favoritism and strengthened a positive same-race bias for Black evaluators (study 1 and 2). We replicated this finding with a third sample to directly test system-justifying attitudes (study 3). The way in which White raters rated White candidates reflected the same attitudes against systems (AA attitudes) that Black raters rating Black candidates exhibited in the authors’ first two studies. Positive system-justifying attitudes or positive attitudes toward AA did not, however, translate into the elevation of same-race candidate ratings of suitability above those of opposite-race candidates.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the size of the sample is on par with the percentage of Blacks nationwide in private-sector managerial-level positions ideally, the authors would have preferred to oversample Black HR managers. Given the scarcity of focus on Black HR managers, future researchers, using diverse samples of evaluators should also consider not only managers' and candidates' race but also their social dominance orientation. Moreover, it is important that future researchers use more racially diverse samples from other industries to more fully identify the ways in which the dynamics of system-justifying processes can emerge to influence evaluation bias during résumé screening.Practical implicationsAdvances in technology pose new challenges to HR hiring practices. This study attempts to fill a void regarding the unintended effects of bias during digital résumé screening. These trends have important HR implications. Initial screening of a job applicant's credentials while concurrently viewing the individual's photograph is likely to activate subconscious evaluation bias, produces inaccurate applicant ratings. This study's findings should caution hiring managers about the potential for bias to arise when viewing job candidates' digital résumés and encourage them to carefully examine various boundary conditions on racial similarity bias effects on applicant pre-screening and subsequent hiring decisions.Social implicationsThe study’s results suggest that bias might be attenuated as organizational leaders engage in efforts to understand their system-justifying motives and examine perceptions of the workplace social hierarchy (i.e. responses to status hierarchies) linked to perceptions of the status quo. For example, understanding how system justifying motives influence evaluation bias will inform how best to design training and other interventions that link discussions of workforce diversity to the relationships among groups within the organization's social hierarchy. This line of research should be further explored to better understand the complex forces at work when hiring managers adopt system-justifying motives during hiring evaluations.Originality/valueThe authors address the limitations of prior research by examining interactions between boundary conditions in a real-world context using real human resources hiring managers and more contemporary personnel-screening practices to test changes in the direction and strength of the relationship between hiring manager–job candidate race and hiring manager evaluations. Thus, the authors’ findings have implications for hiring bias and understanding of system-justification processes, particularly regarding how, when and why hiring managers support the status quo (i.e. perpetuate inequity) even if they are disadvantaged as a result.

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Section: Procedure Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Résumé screening heuristic outcomes: an examination of hiring manager evaluation bias

Moore

Livingston

Susskind

2022

EDI

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“…Yet, studies examining not just perceptions of others, but also their ethnic similarity with those making evaluations, have the added criteria of signaling in-group congruence. Research experiments have had some success showing the favorable similarity effect when participants inferred ethnicity through randomized stimulus materials using culturally distinct names (O’Leary et al, 2009) or accents (Ivanic et al, 2014). However, studies conducted in real-world settings often involve groups that comprise a minority of the population.…”

Section: Literature Review On Ethnic Similarity and Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Effects of Student–Faculty Ethnic Similarity and Level of Group Representation on Teaching Evaluations

Louie

Nishijima

2022

Journal of Marketing Education

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This research explores if student and faculty ethnic similarity produces more favorable teaching evaluations, and if the effect is enhanced when ethnic group representation on campus is low. When student and faculty ethnicity was similar, (a) students from low-representation groups provided the highest evaluations, and (b) students from high-representation groups showed both “more favorable” and “less favorable” evaluations. Evidence suggests that the pattern of findings was strong for qualitatively oriented courses, with the results for quantitative classes less conclusive. Discussion focuses on potential influences to ethnic similarity effects, applications to real-world settings, and future research.

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“…Names may contain alternative sources of information about candidates (O'Leary, Durham, Weathington, Cothran, & Cunningham, 2009). Although an effort was made to use common names and all candidates were presented as white males, it is possible that some participants utilized the names provided to infer information about applicants.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative Sources of Information and the Selection Decision Making Process

Weathington

Bechtel

2012

Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management

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Personal information available on networking websites such as and Facebook © and LinkedIn © is being used more frequently in the workplace. This study examined the effect of alternative sources of information (i.e., information beyond that provided on a formal resume) on applicant evaluations and selection decision making. Alternative information was provided in a format similar to that utilized on social networking websites. Specifically, information was provided about job candidates' alcohol consumption and gambling habits, information not typically found on resumes. It was hypothesized that evaluations of job candidates would be negatively influenced by the provision of negative information through a non resume source. The results indicated that alcohol consumption negatively affected evaluations of job candidates in five areas (likelihood of extending an interview invitation, assessment of qualifications, recommendation for hire, expected work performance, and expected work tenure). Gambling was found to negatively affect evaluations of job candidates in one area (expected work tenure), and the interaction between alcohol consumption and gambling was found to negatively affect evaluations of job candidates in three areas (assessment of qualifications, recommendation for hire, and expected work tenure). Consistent with the hypothesis, it appears that exposure to negative information through a non resume source negatively affected evaluations of job candidates.

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Racial Identity as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Perceived Applicant Similarity and Hiring Decisions

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Résumé screening heuristic outcomes: an examination of hiring manager evaluation bias

Résumé screening heuristic outcomes: an examination of hiring manager evaluation bias

Examining the Effects of Student–Faculty Ethnic Similarity and Level of Group Representation on Teaching Evaluations

Alternative Sources of Information and the Selection Decision Making Process

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