Subconscious stereotyping in personnel decisions

• Published in: Business horizons Vol. 25; no. 5; pp. 60 - 66
• Main Author: Kovach, Kenneth A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Greenwich Elsevier Inc 01.09.1982; Elsevier Advanced Technology Publications; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Analysis; Attitudes; Females; Males; Personnel policies; Personnel selection; Sex discrimination; Stereotypes; Studies
• ISSN: 0007-6813; 1873-6068
• DOI: 10.1016/0007-6813(82)90064-7

This study contends that despite knowledge of the legal aspects of discrimination, people in the workplace are still discriminating - unconsciously - on the basis of race or sex in decisions involving such matters as selection, placement, promotion, training, and compensation. Sex is used as the key variable in this study. A sample of 512 soon-to-graduate college students (271 males and 241 females) were surveyed while taking a Personnel Management course that taught them the legal aspects of employment discrimination. Subjects were asked to react to 8 incidents in which they were supposed to make a personnel decision. Incidents were presented using either male or female primary subjects. Half the males and half the females were given the ''female version''; the other students were given the ''male version''. Study results showed that most believed the male should place job responsibilities first and that home responsibilities should come first for females. Males were viewed as more valuable employees than females, even when their qualifications were exactly the same. The conclusion was that through subtle forms of unintentional sex discrimination, organizations hire enough females to comply with the law, but do not allow females to develop managerially to the same extent as equally qualified males.