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Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech
Candidates at job interviews expect to be evaluated on their experience, conduct, and ideas, but a new study by Yale researchers provides evidence that interviewees are judged based on their social status seconds after they start to speak.
The study, to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates that people can accurately assess a stranger's socioeconomic position -- defined by their income, education, and occupation status -- based on brief speech patterns and shows that these snap perceptions influence hiring managers in ways that favor job applicants from higher social classes.
"Our study shows that even during the briefest interactions, a person's speech patterns shape the way people perceive them, including assessing their competence and fitness for a job," said Michael Kraus, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. "While most hiring managers would deny that a job candidate's social class matters, in reality, the socioeconomic position of an applicant or their parents is being assessed within the first seconds they speak -- a circumstance that limits economic mobility and perpetuates inequality."
[...] "We rarely talk explicitly about social class, and yet, people with hiring experience infer competence and fitness based on socioeconomic position estimated from a few second of an applicant's speech," Kraus said. "If we want to move to a more equitable society, then we must contend with these ingrained psychological processes that drive our early impressions of others. Despite what these hiring tendencies may suggest, talent is not found solely among those born to rich or well-educated families. Policies that actively recruit candidates from all levels of status in society are best positioned to match opportunities to the people best suited for them."
Journal Reference:
Michael W. Kraus et al. Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech[$]. PNAS, 2019 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900500116
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 25 2019, @06:06PM (10 children)
I call bullshit on that. One doesn't just start up a company, and overnight challenge a multi-national multi-billion dollar company, no matter how much talent you can corner.
If you've never seen a freaking half-wit supervising highly talented people, then either A: you haven't been paying attention or B: you are the half-wit. Nepotism is alive and well in the corporate world, among other counter-productive practices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 25 2019, @06:28PM (9 children)
I agree, it does happen, but I do think it's exaggerated because if it happens to such an extreme degree then someone will hire all this underutilized / unutilized talent and outcompete their competitors.
Big companies got big by doing something right, hiring the right talent. Sure they have the first mover advantage that can help them rest on their laurels to some extent but, short of regulatory capture (which is an important issue that needs to be discussed and if the problem is regulatory capture it's the regulatory capture that needs to be discussed), if they rest on their laurels too much the competition will take them out of business.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 25 2019, @06:45PM (4 children)
Regulatory capture. I'm not sure if you'll count "intellectual property" as regulatory. But, it's a real hurdle, in the Western world. Not so much in China, though. It's impossible for me to start producing the stuff my company produces, without a lot of years tied up in court. Walmart, however, is producing a competing product in China, using Chinese labor, and thumbing their nose at the concept of intellectual property, with the assistance of the Chinese government.
And, I am serious as a heart attack here. We lost our Walmart contracts, only to watch Walmart start stocking their shelves with nearly identical products bearing the Walmart brand, produced in China.
You are perfectly right, in that big corporations got big by doing something right. In today's world, those things that they did right more than a hundred years ago may not be right today. Those things that they did thirty years ago, may not even be right today.
Meanwhile, we have these strange new mutant creatures, called "MBA" who have changed everything that those companies DID do right thirty, or fifty, or a hundred and fifty years ago. Today, the dumbest of people who hold a degree are deemed smarter than any fool who failed to get a degree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 25 2019, @07:25PM (2 children)
I absolutely count intellectual property as regulator capture and a topic worth discussing with respect to a meritocracy.
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Friday October 25 2019, @08:18PM (1 child)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Friday October 25 2019, @08:22PM
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 25 2019, @08:13PM
Also worth discussing are non-compete clauses and regulations surrounding them. The focus should be on anything that prevents a competitor from outcompeting a company that employs poor hiring practices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @12:25AM (3 children)
The problem lies more in different domains of competency than in the complete lack of it. The 'halfwits in management' are generally very good at schmoozing, selling shit and office politics. The tech people regard that as irrelevant bullshit and keep complaining about the immoral idiots in charge. The managers in turn regard the techs as blunt, unsocial, politically naive fools.
They are both right within their respective domains.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @01:01AM (2 children)
The managers aren't right if they don't know how to manage tech workers properly, which they so often don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @01:22AM (1 child)
And you demonstrate that you don't understand evolution. The first job of a manager is to survive at any cost.
Managing subordinates well might be useful, but if you can pin failures on rivals, then managing badly might be even more useful. The typical tech view of "let's get the job done" is often in conflict with the manager's desire to protect his position, and grow his empire. If he can pin a failure on his boss it can result in a promotion. If he can pin it on a subordinate, it holds down a potential rival. If he can't blame a rival, then techs make useful scapegoats. Getting the job done is a side effect of the ecosystem in which he swims.
The tragedy of the commons applies to the management landscape too, he will enhance his personal position at the expense of the company right up until the commons collapses (company goes bankrupt), and beyond.
Techs often don't understand this, and when they do, they find the whole system morally repugnant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @08:54AM
Even at the cost of the organization, yes. But in turn, we must strip their lives away from them at any cost.