Collaborative Research: Accounting for Status

SES-0751993Cecilia Ridgeway斯坦福大学SES-0751471雪莉·科雷尔·康奈尔大学SES-0751474 Ezra ZukermanMIT在偏向高地位选项的决策中，责任的作用体现在这样一句话上：？从来没有人因为收购IBM而被解雇。这种表达反映了一种认识，即如果决策者可以说自己做了什么？大多数人？他们必须向其他人证明自己的决定是合理的，那么他们更容易为自己的决定辩护。会这样做吗？也就是，倾向于高地位的选择。然而，虽然经济社会学的研究证明了这种影响，但社会心理学中对地位的研究却显示出了似乎相反的模式，即责任可以抑制偏见，有利于性别或种族等地位特征。考虑到这一背景，拟议项目的学术价值在于：1)开发和测试一种新的关于问责在地位进程中的作用的理论分析，促进我们对重要的社会不平等进程的理解；2)整合关于问责和地位偏差的两个先前分开且似乎相互矛盾的研究线索。这种和解的关键是要认识到，责任是地位的组成部分，因为地位不仅标志着质量？但也充当了一种社会协调装置，人们通过这种装置将自己的行为与他人联系起来。如果决策者感觉依赖于观众的认可，但只知道观众知道地位结构，那么决策者倾向于高地位选项是理性的，即使决策者本人并不认可这些选项。但就决策者而言：相信或怀疑观众持有非常规的信念(例如，性别和种族偏见是非法的)，对高地位选项的偏见将会减少。两个实验将测试关于问责制在什么情况下产生有利于高地位选项的偏见以及在哪些情况下它抑制这种偏见的假设。第一个实验采用了遵循经济社会学的消费者产品选择决策。第二个涉及评估应聘者的招聘档案，类似于社会心理学研究。每个实验中的条件都会操纵决策者S对她的决定的受众感觉，因此，对于消费者的选择和招聘建议，我们预测在一个条件下会有较高的地位偏爱，而在其他条件下这种偏爱会被抑制。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对妇女和少数群体的工作场所歧视的政策提供信息。该项目表明，问责制的积极作用只有在一种环境中才能实现，这种环境能够有效地推翻传统的信念，取而代之的是当地环境中的具体信念，使地位与质量的联系脱钩。其次，该项目将通过为两所大学的研究生和几名本科生提供进行社会研究的第一手培训和经验，为科学基础设施做出贡献。第三，根据以往的经验，私人投资督导预计毕业生和本科生中有多达一半是女性和少数族裔人士。这样的经历增加了这些学生追求科学职业的可能性。

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.