Judgments and Selections of Blacks and Whites: The Use of Behavioral and Non-Behavioral Information Under Scarce Hiring Resources
Sixty Blacks and 68 Whites role-played as supervisors in a company who depended on their subordinates for performance outcomes. Participants first judged Black and White applicants with either consistent (i.e., all Bs) or inconsistent (i.e., As and Cs) grades on 6 courses. Then they selected applicants to be their subordinates. Half of the participants were instructed that their hiring budget was limited (i.e., they could hire 50% of the applicants) and the other half were instructed that it was unlimited (i.e., they could hire all of the applicants). Furthermore, half of the participants were informed about their hiring budget before they judged applicants, whereas others were informed about their hiring budget only after they judged applicants. After selecting applicants, all participants assigned tasks varying in difficulty and number to their subordinates. Consistent applicants were judged to have higher ability, were more likely to be hired, and given more difficult and more tasks. As predicted, Whites judged inconsistent applicants to be lower on ability than consistent ones especially when they had limited hiring resources. However, Blacks judged inconsistent applicants to be relatively higher. This was because Blacks and Whites had different implicit theories of performance. Applicants were also less favorably evaluated in the selection context than in the rating context, especially when they displayed inconsistent performance. This was because participants were more focussed on the consequences of their evaluations when judging applicants than when selecting them. Finally, Black applicants were judged to be better than White applicants by Black participants. Whereas, Whites who scored higher than Blacks on identity concerns, judged Black and White applicants to have similar ability. In the selection context, however, the pattern was reversed. Whites were sometimes less likely to select Black applicants. Whereas, Blacks who were more focussed on the consequences of their selections and more motivated to select fairly, were equally likely to select Black and White applicants.
Sociology, Industrial and Labor Relations
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign