Collaborative Research: Accounting for Status

SES-0751993塞西莉亚·里奇韦斯坦福大学SES-0751471雪莱·科雷尔康奈尔大学SES-0751474埃兹拉·祖克曼麻省理工学院问责制在偏向高地位选择的决策中的作用可以用这样一句话来概括：没有人因为收购IBM而被解雇。这一表述反映了这样一种认识，即决策者必须向他人证明其决定的合理性，如果他们能够说他们做了什么，他们就更容易为自己的决定辩护。大多数人？会怎么做也就是说，更倾向于高地位的选择然而，尽管经济社会学的研究已经证明了这种影响，但社会心理学中关于地位的研究却显示了相反的模式，即问责制抑制了有利于性别或种族等地位特征的偏见。考虑到这一背景，拟议的项目的智力价值是：1）开发和测试一个新的理论分析的责任在地位过程中的作用，推进我们对重要的社会不平等过程的理解; 2）整合两个以前独立的，似乎相互矛盾的研究链的责任和地位偏见。这种和解的关键在于认识到问责制是地位的组成部分，因为地位不仅表明？质量如何？而且还充当社会协调装置，通过该装置，人们将他们的行为与他人相关联。作为决策者，他感到依赖于受众的认可，但只知道受众意识到地位结构，因此决策者倾向于高地位的选择是合理的，即使决策者个人并不认可它们。但就决策者而言：相信或怀疑观众持有非传统的信念（例如，性别和种族偏见是非法的），对高地位选择的偏见将减少。两个实验将测试关于问责制产生偏向高地位选项的条件以及问责制抑制这种偏向的条件的假设。第一个实验采用了消费者的产品选择决定，经济社会学。第二个涉及评估申请人档案，以进行类似于社会心理学研究的招聘。每个实验中的条件操纵决策者？因此，对于消费者的选择和招聘推荐，我们预测在一种情况下会出现高地位偏好，而在另一种情况下，我们预计这种偏好会受到抑制。该项目有几个更广泛的影响。首先，它有可能为旨在通过加强问责制减少工作场所对妇女和少数群体歧视的政策提供信息。该项目表明，只有在能够有效地推翻传统观念，代之以当地环境中的具体观念，使地位与素质脱钩的环境中，问责制的积极影响才能实现。第二，该项目将通过向两所大学的研究生和几名本科生提供进行社会研究方面的第一手培训和经验，为科学基础设施作出贡献。第三，根据以往的经验，私人投资者预计多达一半的毕业生和本科生将是女性和少数种族/民族。这样的经历增加了这些学生从事科学事业的可能性。

SES-0751993Cecilia RidgewayStanford University SES-0751471Shelley CorrellCornell UniversitySES-0751474Ezra ZukermanMITThe role of accountability in biasing decisions in favor of high-status options is captured by the saying, ?No one ever got fired for buying IBM.? This expression reflects the recognition that decision-makers who must justify their decisions to others have an easier time defending that decision if they can say that they did what ?most people? would have done?i.e., favored the high-status option. Yet while research in economic sociology has documented such an effect, research on status in social psychology has shown what appears to be the opposite pattern, whereby accountability dampens biases in favor of status characteristics such as gender or race. With this background in mind, the intellectual merits of the proposed project are that it: 1) develops and tests a new theoretical analysis of the role of accountability in status processes that advances our understanding of important social inequality processes; 2) integrates two previously separate and seemingly contradictory strands of research on accountability and status biases. The key to this reconciliation involves recognizing that accountability is constitutive of status because status not only signals ?quality? but also acts as a social coordination device by which people align their behavior in relation to others. Insofar as a decision-maker feels dependent on audience approval but knows only that the audience is aware of the status structure, it is rational for a decision-maker to favor high-status options even when the decision-maker personally does not endorse them. But insofar as the decision-maker: believes or suspects that the audience holds unconventional beliefs (e.g., that gender and race biases are illegitimate), the bias towards high status options will be reduced. Two experiments will test hypotheses about the conditions under which accountability produces biases in favor of high status options and those in which it suppresses such biases. The first experiment employs a consumer product choice decision following economic sociology. The second involves the assessment of applicant files for hiring similar to social psychological research. Conditions within each experiment manipulate the decision maker?s sense of the audience for his of her decision so that, for both consumer choice and hiring recommendations, we predict high status favoritism in one condition while we expect such favoritism to be suppressed in other conditions. The project has several broader impacts. First it has the potential to inform policies aimed at reducing workplace discrimination against women and minorities by increasing accountability. This project suggests that the positive effects of accountability will only be realized in an environment that can effectively override conventional beliefs and replace them with specific beliefs in the local environment that decouple the association of status and quality. Second, the project will contribute to the infrastructure of science by providing graduate students and several undergraduates at two universities with first hand training and experience in the conduct of social research. Third, from past experience, the PIs expect that up to half of the graduates and undergraduates will be women and racial/ethnic minorities. Such experiences increase the likelihood that these students will pursue scientific careers.