<p>Maybe. I’ve seen some anecdotal demonstrations of “bias” that I like much better. 20/20 or one of those programs did a show on human attractiveness and sent people into an interview for a securities sales trainee (at a tertiary firm), and that one was quite funny, since the sales manager was falling all over himself regarding the handsome male candidate compared to the “normal” looking guy. That one wasn’t scientific, but it was pretty revealing, since they challenged the manager and he insisted that the handsome guy was a natural born salesmen, even though they had the interviews taped and they were quite similar in substance. </p>
<p>I see what the problem is for designing the studies, but doesn’t it beg the question? If you have to fudge the qualifications to ensure that the candidate isn’t clearly qualified (I’m changing what they said they did to what I am speculating they did) then whatever bias you’re discovering may not really be relevant.</p>
<p>I’ll see if I can find the time to look through the rest of the study. I’m interested in how far down they had to move the qualifications in order to ensure that “the needle moved” on the bias scale. </p>
<p>Why is it better if anti-group bias is based on culture rather than race? Do you really think it’s OK to say, “Those Muslims are untrustworthy, so I won’t hire any”? Or “This guy with the Chinese name probably won’t speak English well, so I won’t waste my time figuring out if the stereotype is true in his case or not”?</p>
<p>If that’s what you think, the law disagrees with you. So does the Golden Rule.</p>
<p>^^ I get it now. People are believing what they want to be believe; nothing new there that is for sure. </p>
<p>So, the study is really just incidental to the conversation of what people already believe and want to believe. And that set of conclusions re minority and female bias throws in a monkey wrench because, according to conventional wisdom, that cannot be true even if the data says so.</p>
<p>Please note I am not supporting the study. I am only observing that people already brought their own conclusions via conventional wisdom, which has no data support at all behind it. </p>
<p>Thank god the study is majorly flawed or else the conventional wisdom people might have to rethink their conventional wisdom. But, that rethink would need happen because it too expensive in lost money.</p>
<p>In short, with minority and female bias giving equivalent results, the entire study never had / has a chance to be accepted as valid, even if it were / is valid. This is because nothing can overcome the power of conventional wisdom, especially when said conventional wisdom can be used to wield political power. </p>
<p>“And that set of conclusions re minority and female bias throws in a monkey wrench because, according to conventional wisdom, that cannot be true even if the data says so.”</p>
<p>Where do you get that this is conventional wisdom? The whole idea of institutional racism/sexism is that it influences everyone in the culture. Of course women can internalize sexism, black people can internalize racism, etc. We are all susceptible to judging one another, and ourselves, according to stereotype. This is sociology 101.</p>
<p>@Hanna - I was only responding to the post above by @Fluffy2017, who stated it was new in regard to conventional wisdom. I did not initiate use of the term or accept it as fact. I simply directed my response to that use of conventional wisdom, as a supposition.</p>
<p>I read one comment–I think on a different website–that I thought was interesting. It said that to really evaluate this result, you’d have to know how many requests somewhat like this academics receive. In particular, if they get a huge number of requests from Chinese students-most of whom turned out to be internationals students in the past, that could affect how responsive they might be to more.</p>
<p>The study authors cited this as a counter-intuitive result: “Counter-intuitively, our work reveals that representation of women and minorities and bias are surprisingly uncorrelated”</p>
<p>Take it up with them as to why they claim this was counter-intuitive.</p>
<p>^^ I have no beef with you, so I have no idea from where you get drama. </p>
<p>Counter-intuitive is the correct word. Just as long as you understand that intuitive needs no data support and need not be correct, as intuitive could easily be wrong. Therefore, it follows counter-intuitive could be wrong too.</p>
<p>It’s cool. Everyone has the right to their own suppositions, whether intuitive or other. You get no argument from me there.</p>
<p>Again, cool. I have no beef with any of you. I just wanted to know what actual data exists that minorities and females do not have bias and have not actively exhibited bias. You kindly answered my question. No such data exists. That is all I was wondering about. Thanks. </p>
<p>I didn’t take sociology 101, but I am glad to hear that a white male professor would show the same bias against a Hispanic student as would a Hispanic professor against that student. Ditto on the male prof and female student.</p>
<p>The study cites other research in this area supporting that.</p>
<p>Not that I am at all happy that there is a bias, but at least we know that it not a one race vs. another issue and it isn’t a man vs. woman issue.</p>
<p>My answer should have been “I don’t know”. I am not an authority of what research there is about this. </p>
<p>You are right. I should have used the phrase “intuitive” rather than “common knowledge” since that phrase has the word "knowledge"in it which of course indicates it is based on data.</p>
<p>People just love to talk about race, and I will never understand those people. I never needed to sit down and critically analyze that way I treat people because i treat people the same regardless or race or gender, I thought this was normal. I guess i live in a planet filled with dumb-asses.</p>
<p>2) There’s a lot of research supporting the idea that people attach races to certain names. Yes, they deliberately used WASPy names, presumably because using the names of other white ethnic groups would skew the results (Markov or Kowalski may bring associations with Eastern Europeans or immigrants, for example). What the heck is rich about Anderson or Smith? And Dong and Wong are common Chinese surnames. Sure, people may associate negative meanings with them, that was the entire point of the study.</p>
<p>So since I am dark-skinned white, they can’t use my name because it would “skew results”? That’s my freaking point, that using WASPy assumedly rich therefore names skews the results!!!</p>
<p>You are just showing another example regarding discrimination against Eastern Europeans and “ethnic” whites. EVERY SINGLE “white” name was WASPy. NOT ONE was associated with an ethnicity where the people are off-white or olive-skinned.</p>
<p>The normal way professors treat unsolicited requests for “a meeting today” is ignore it. I doubt the veracity of this study based on personal experience - the rate of return is astronomically high for such an endeavor.</p>
<p>The fallacy of intuition is that people tend to ignore when intuition fails, so intuition isn’t good for contexts like these. You need Data to back it up. According a my Ap psychology course lecture.</p>
<p>Does it occur to anyone else that what this study found was how professors respond to poorly-worded blind inquiries from unknown potential students, NOT how professors respond to actual students who are mentoring candidates?</p>
<p>It seems that the professors are indeed willing to give more benefit of the doubt to certain unknown emailers who present themselves sloppily. This does not necessarily mean that the same professor discriminates in this way among actual potential mentorees with whom the are acquainted or who write a good letter presenting their qualifications properly and citing appropriate research in which the professor is engaged.</p>