Summary. This is the final report for “Doctoral Dissertation Research: Status Ideology: How is Status Information Interpreted?,” NSF grant 2001946. The grant was in the amount of $16,000 for the period of March 01, 2021 to February 28, 2022. We were granted a no-cost extension until February 28, 2023 due to COVID-19 interruptions. The final report is due June 30, 2023.

This research explored the mechanisms that influence racial inequality in hiring, wages, evaluations, and promotions. More specifically, the study examined the interplay between unconscious and cognitive processes in relation to decision-making outcomes related to work. This project focused on how individuals interpret and cognitively attend to information when evaluating job applicants’ résumés that differ on race/ethnicity and work ability to better understand how individuals interpret such information.

The study proposed a mixed-methods experimental design that collects evaluations, physiological measurements and qualitative interviews. Participants were to review a pair of résumés that signal race/ethnicity and work ability, i.e. work skill score, a tool used by companies to diversify their hiring practices. A neurological measure captured evaluators’ cognitive attention when evaluating different types of information, such as race/ethnicity and work skill scores. Randomly-selected evaluators participated in qualitative interviews to help provide insight into the interpretive frameworks evaluators may use to justify unequal outcomes.

Completed Research Activity: In 2021, preliminary experimental data was collected from 106 participants. Due to COVID-19, in-person data collection was never able to begin using NSF funds that began March 1, 2021. Therefore, a no-cost extension was granted with methodological changes. The new methodology uses a quasi-experimental design to collect data from online participants that review a pair of résumés that signal race/ethnicity and résumé scores. Although the new methodology no longer permits neurological measurement, since in-person data collection has ceased, it still allows us to examine differences in résumé evaluations and the cognitive rationalized used by individuals to justify their choices.

Preliminary Analysis: Results from the preliminary experimental data show résumé evaluation task outcomes and qualitative interviews both demonstrate that evaluators interpreted work skill scores as a specific status, which was used to assess competence and inform candidate selection. This provides theoretical evidence that work skill scores can be used to help minimize status-based, or race-based, discrimination in hiring. However, results also show high statusindividuals (White) ignore, reject, or incorporate information in ways that preserve the (racial) status quo. When Black applicants held higher work scores, evaluators behaviorally selected Black applicant while challenging the credentials of Black applicants’ specific status. This shows how individuals can behave in ways to hire Black applicants while reproducing narratives of racial bias. When Black and White applicants held equal work scores, evaluators frequently acknowledged the need for race-based practices to address systemic racism or suggested that companies should hire with the goal of racial diversity if both applicants were matched. However, in each of these instances, evaluators selected White applicants that held the same specific status as Black applicants. This demonstrates how individuals can advocate to remedy system racism and simultaneously reproduce racial inequality with their behavior. This reveals how a disconnection between cognitions and behavior can reproduce racial inequality. The online quasi-experimental redesign is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2023.

Last Modified: 07/27/2023
Modified by: Carla D Goar