What Happens Before? A Field Experiment Exploring How Pay and Representation Differentially Shape Bias on the Pathway Into Organizations
What Happens Before? A Field Experiment Exploring How Pay and Representation Differentially Shape Bias on the Pathway Into Organizations
复制标题
DOI：
10.1037/apl0000022
复制
发表时间：
2015-11-01
影响因子：
9.9
通讯作者：
Chugh, Dolly
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Milkman, Katherine L.;Akinola, Modupe;Chugh, Dolly
人们对个人在正式向组织提出申请之前歧视是如何表现出来的，以及在组织内部和组织之间歧视是如何变化的知之甚少。我们通过对美国顶尖大学的6,500多名教授进行的学术界审计研究来解决这一知识差距。S.来自89个学科和259个机构的大学。在我们的实验中，教授们被虚构的未来学生联系，他们在申请博士课程之前寻求讨论研究机会。学生的名字被随机分配到信号性别和种族（白色，黑人，西班牙裔，印度人，中国人），但其他信息是相同的。我们假设歧视会出现在进入学术界之前的非正式“途径”中，并且会因学科和大学而异，这取决于教师代表和薪酬。我们发现，在考虑未来寻求指导的潜在学生的请求时，教师对白色男性的反应明显高于所有其他类别的学生，特别是在高薪学科和私立机构。与直觉相反，妇女和少数群体的代表性与歧视无关，这一发现表明，不能假定增加代表性就能减少歧视。这项研究强调了研究在正式进入组织之前所作决定的重要性，并揭示了歧视在组织内部和组织之间的分布并不均匀。
Little is known about how discrimination manifests before individuals formally apply to organizations or how it varies within and between organizations. We address this knowledge gap through an audit study in academia of over 6,500 professors at top U. S. universities drawn from 89 disciplines and 259 institutions. In our experiment, professors were contacted by fictional prospective students seeking to discuss research opportunities prior to applying to a doctoral program. Names of students were randomly assigned to signal gender and race (White, Black, Hispanic, Indian, Chinese), but messages were otherwise identical. We hypothesized that discrimination would appear at the informal "pathway" preceding entry to academia and would vary by discipline and university as a function of faculty representation and pay. We found that when considering requests from prospective students seeking mentoring in the future, faculty were significantly more responsive to White males than to all other categories of students, collectively, particularly in higher-paying disciplines and private institutions. Counterintuitively, the representation of women and minorities and discrimination were uncorrelated, a finding that suggests greater representation cannot be assumed to reduce discrimination. This research highlights the importance of studying decisions made before formal entry points into organizations and reveals that discrimination is not evenly distributed within and between organizations.