Introduction
Inequality takes place in every
workplace in numerous amount. Often biases are from outside their conscious
awareness. Most of the time they will not admit to the bias. I does not matter
how managed or well-intentioned the employer/employee is bias cannot be
eliminated.
Promotional bias is when the
manager or the top level supervisor who has the power has subtle prejudice that
affect the decision of the promotion. Often in the workplace female staff are
discriminated against in the promotional process due to gender biases. According
to Jacob (1992), for the past 20 years women in management has increased but
they did not hold level of authority or salary equivalent to the male workers.
Sometimes one of the most powerful characteristic
affecting occupational outcome is physical appearance. Certain studies have
shown that attractive people are more likely to be favored in the work place over
equally qualified unattractive people in hiring decision making and promotion. But
when hiring for a masculine type job attractive people were chosen as less
qualified over less attractive people. Heliman (1983) tried to explain the
effects of gender and attractiveness can be both sided. The attractive person the manager hired is
more feminine than the unattractive women. As a result to this the attractive
person is poorly judged in terms of skills or abilities and managerial roles.
In order to analyze the biases
pertain to the promotion, an article written by (Marlowe, Schneider, & Nelson, 1996) will be discussed.
The research method used by the authors and how they collected their data and
the tables shown in the article will also be discussed.
Research methodology
For their data collection the
participants were 46 male and 66 female financial-institution supervisors and
managers who attended any of four routine regional meetings. Each participant's
managerial experience was operationalized as the number of performance reviews
completed during his or her career. The number of performance was highly
correlated to one another in relation to experience and number of employees
hired.
Data Analysis
According to the research article
selected for the discussion, they conducted two multiple analysis of variances
to determine the attractiveness and gender on ratings for suitability to hire.
After the analysis the results from the two analysis were highly similar. There
were significant main effects of both attractiveness and applicant gender.
Table 1: Means and Standard
Deviations from the Attractiveness X Applicant Gender X Managerial Experience
Interactions for Ratings of Hirability and of Expected Progression to Executive
Vice President.
Note: The ranges in number of performance reviews completed for the
low (n = 37), moderate (n = 37), and high (n = 38) experience levels were 0-2,
3-20, and 20-100+, respectively. For ratings of suitability for hire, 1 =
strongly recommend to reject and 9 = strongly recommend to hire. For ratings of
expected progression to executive vice president, 1 = very sure will not be
promoted to executive vice president and 9 = very sure will be promoted to
executive vice president. Means with the same subscript differ significantly
using a modified Nonferrous wherein test vise Type I error rate was not greater
than .0125. Uppercase and lowercase subscripts designate row and column
comparisons, respectively.
Managers judged that highly
attractive candidates (M= 7.13, SD= 1.19) were more suitable for hire than
marginally attractive candidates (M = 6.61, SD = 1.54), F (1, 108) = 16.69, p <
.001, u 2 = .07, and that men (M = 7.03, SD = 1.26) were more
suitable for hire than women (M = 6.71,50= 1.47), F(l, 108) = 5.64, p < .02, u2 = .02. Managers also
judged that highly attractive candidates (M = 6.08, SD = 1.31) were more likely
to eventually be promoted to an executive vice presidency than were marginally
attractive candidates (M=5A3,SD= 1.62), Fd, 108)= 15.70, p< .001, u2
= .06, and that men (M = 6.11, SD = 1.35) were more likely to attain that
status than were women (M = 5.41, SD = 1.55), F(1, 108)= 17.43,p< .001, u2
= .08, respectively. The main effects of managerial experience and manager
gender were not significant in either analysis.
Table 2: Means and Standard Deviations from the Attractiveness X
Managerial Experience X Manager Gender Interactions for Ratings of Hirability
and of Expected Progression to Executive wise President.
Note: For female managers, n = 24 for both the low- and
moderate-experience groups, and n = 18 for the high-experience group. For male
managers, « = 13 for both the low- and moderate-experience groups, and 77 = 20
for the high-experience group. For ratings of suitability for hire, 1 = strongly
recommend to reject and 9 = strongly recommend to hire. For ratings of expected
progression to executive vice president, 1 = very sure will not be promoted to
executive vice president and 9 - very sure will be promoted to executive vice
president. Means with the same subscript differ significantly using a modified
Nonferrous wherein test wise Type I error rate was not greater than .0125.
Uppercase and lowercase subscripts designate row and column comparisons,
respectively.
For the analysis of table 2 also
they used the regression analysis were used. However, in this case, tests
involving the between-subjects variable of manager gender differed in power
because of differences in the number of participants per condition.
As for the female managers large
attractiveness bias was evident for the low and moderate level of experience.
Whereas for male there were very small amount of judgement bias in favor of
highly attractive candidates regardless to their experience. However these bias
analysis were not confirmed because of the limited candidates.
Table 3: Ranking Da/a for All Managers
Note: The values in each cell represent the number of managers who
assigned the designated ranking to a given candidate. N = 112.
On examining the role of experience
in the attractiveness bias, it was found that 73% of the low-experience
managers selected a highly attractive candidate as their number one choice, 65%
of the moderately experienced managers followed suit, and only 47% of the
high-experience managers preferred highly attractive candidates.
Conclusion
Bias takes place at every level of
the hierarchy, at every department among managers at hire level or at promotion
level. According to the above analysis and discussion usually promotions are
affected because of the gender bias in the workplace. Some organizations give
more importance to the attractiveness and appearance of the employee than their
qualifications and experience. a
References
Marlowe, C. M., Schneider, S. L., & Nelson, C.
E. (1996). Gender and Attractiveness Biases in Hiring Decisions:Are More
Experienced Managers Less Biased? Journal of Applied Psychology,
11-19.