<p>@collegalum314, those are definitely valid reasons given. But still, the overall response based on valid concerns should be seen across the board and not such a variance based on the gender or perceived race/nationality. No?</p>
<p>Obviously the email content wasn’t given the consideration by those conducting the study that it should have. I didn’t pick up on those contradictions as I know nothing about the process of graduate research or applications.</p>
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<p>We all know that those “10 minutes” would lead to a lot longer. And, ten minutes might have been what the recipient thought the sender should have invested in writing a ,more compelling and timely message. </p>
<p>If if were in that position, I would have ignored a similar invitation, regardless of recognizing the racial “neon” sign. And simply because I’d consider the message poorly written and quite obnoxious. Hey, Dear Prof, I am in town next week. I really like your research but I did not find the time to contact you earlier and indicate why I’d love to meet you. How about ten minutes for you to waste on me? Yep, that’d work all the time! </p>
<p>Again, I happen to think that the outcome might be different if the same research was repeated. </p>
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<p>However, with the Chinese names, a name like “Chang Huang” or “Mei Chen” (as used in this experiment) is probably more likely to be perceived as international than a name like “John Huang” or “Helen Chen”, as it is common for Chinese Americans (born in the US) to have names of the latter type with a non-Chinese given name. The same may apply to other descendents of immigrants, though perhaps to varying degrees (appears less so for Indian Americans, for example).</p>
<p>@Xiggi, I agree that the email was poorly constructed, but it was poorly constructed “by” the Caucasian males as well as the others and their outcome was different overall.</p>
<p>@ucb I agree.</p>
<p>ok fair enough. Your daughter knows every daily assignment, and how well/poorly she and the other student performed and why. And, now you add that you personally were mentoring the black student. That surely gives you specific insight into the other student’s capabilities in that specific course of study. Having all that info now, it is reasonable imo, for the daughter to conclude it was race.
Your post however, did not initially give us that info. We only knew what you wrote, though and your post let us interpret that you had come to that conclusion based only on the differences you outlined in your post, and the conversation after 1 assignment. In light of the new, expanded info now provided, I agree with you.</p>
<p>The fact remains that the letters by “white males” were ignored a lot less than females and international students–which can’t be explained by the fact that all of the letters were poorly written.</p>
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<p>I agree, but the study tested response rate to an inappropriate and suspect email. It may be logical that any bias seen in responses to inappropriate emails may extend to responses to reasonably professional ones, but that is not what the study proved. Science is supposed to be rigorous. </p>
<p>By the way, this is the email that was sent by the fake students:</p>
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<p>The abstract for the paper can be found here:
<a href=“What Happens Before? A Field Experiment Exploring How Pay and Representation Differentially Shape Bias on the Pathway into Organizations by Katherine L. Milkman, Modupe Akinola, Dolly Chugh :: SSRN”>What Happens Before? A Field Experiment Exploring How Pay and Representation Differentially Shape Bias on the Pathway into Organizations by Katherine L. Milkman, Modupe Akinola, Dolly Chugh :: SSRN;
<p>The paper can be downloaded from that link.</p>
<p>So whats an African American name?
Angela Davis? Bill Russell? Wanda Sykes?</p>
<p>Lamar Washington, Terell Jones, Keisha Thomas, Latoya Brown.</p>
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<p>I understand that part, but my point remains that a negative answer might not correlate as much to race as to the CORRECT reaction to ignore this type of message. “I will be on campus today …” is simply not conducive to start a potential contact with a mentor. People have full agenda, and are rarely available for such meetings without proper notice. </p>
<p>This is akin to poll the appetite for and response to different types of ice creams by presenting a pint to the testers after they finished a 9-course meal. Some gluttons might take a scoop, but might simply ignore the request.</p>
<p>And, as last fwiw, one ought to consider how effective a spam filter might be to protect mentors from mailings that use fictitious names. </p>
<p>^I wonder what the response rate would be to extremely WASPy names. For instance, Trustfund Jones III,
Priscilla Vanderbilt, Troy Noble. </p>
<p>Perhaps some names are more neutral than others, and it is not the particular ethnicity which is the bias, but the clear identification of any ethnicity which triggers the bias. It’s just an idea.</p>
<p>There have been studies showing similar “name bias” in other areas as well-in job applications, rental applications, etc. “White sounding” names tend to get the preference, from the information I’ve seen. Emerald-I’m pretty sure you knew what they meant by “African American names”. They were in the link. Names like “Bill” would never be on the list.</p>
<p>I wondered about that too. I know what is meant by African sounding name, but am not clear on what is meant by “African-American” sounding name.<br>
Is Tony Smith “white sounding” or not? </p>
<p>Abioye Afua is clearly a name from African tradition, but is it someone that is born in Africa or born in America?
Like sseamom, I have heard of studies that indicate some are biased against black Americans that have traditional African names. Latauanda Williams might be a fine name in the African tradition of naming, but not many would guess Latauanda is of Chinese, Russian, Irish, Canadian, (as a few examples) of her ancestry. Is that what is meant by “African-American” name? Some feel a name like that puts a child at an unfair disadvantage because of bias in hiring.</p>
<p>@sseamom, the names I listed were the ones used in the paper.</p>
<p>And exactly as Sseamom said. The study even gives the percentage of recognition for ethnicity of the names they chose for the study. I think it was Indian names they used which were least clearly recognized as they had intended for them to be.</p>
<p>And back to the email sounding off, if any of the names were to arouse suspicion, I think the one most likely to do so would be Steve (or was it Steven?) Smith, and yet with that used as one of the white male names, there were still more favorable responses.</p>
<p>The authors used the following as “ethnic” names, as listed in Table 1 of the paper:</p>
<p>Caucasian*: Brad Anderson, Steven Smith, Meredith Roberts, Claire Smith
Black: Lamar Washington, Terrell Jones, Keisha Thomas, Latoya Brown
Hispanic: Carlos Lopez, Juan Gonzalez, Gabriella Rodriguez, Juanita Martinez
Indian: Raj Singh, Deepak Patel, Sonali Desai, Indira Shah
Chinese: Chang Huang, Dong Lin, Mei Chin, Ling Wong</p>
<p>*Their term. Seems like they did not want to use Caucasian names like Narek Petrosyan or Mariam Saroyan.</p>
<p>I didnt read the whole paper, eyesight ya know?
Latoya is Spanish, Keisha is derived from Keziah, which is Hebrew, Lamar is European ( Different references cite English, French & German), & Terrell is German.</p>
<p>I named our kids names that went with our last name, and that could be used different ways, isnt that what most people( Americans) do?</p>