Abstract

King, Madera, Hebl, and Knight (2006) found evidence that race-typed names can have significant influence on the evaluation of resumes. Specifically, they found significant differences between Asian, Hispanic, Black and White-sounding names. They also found that occupational stereotypes covaried the relationship between names and evaluation. The current study expanded on their research by manipulating race with new groups (White, Asian Indian, Nigerian, Muslim, and Non-traditional Black-sounding names), manipulating the quality of the resume (low, high), and by considering occupational stereotypes (low-status, high-status) as an explanatory mechanism. Participants who have claimed hiring experience (N=170) from several fields read a fictitious resume, gave an overall evaluation of the applicant, and judged the applicant's suitability for several occupations. A factorial analysis indicated that people who make hiring decisions do not evaluate applicants differently based on their name alone. Participants were able to evaluate candidates according to their resume, such that candidates with high-quality resumes received better evaluations than those with low-quality resumes. Also, no significant interaction of race and resume quality was found. Occupational stereotypes could not be explored as a covariate due to the lack of significant difference in names.

Advisor

Kristie Campana

Committee Member

Lisa M. Perez

Committee Member

Sherrise Truesdale-Moore

Date of Degree

2014

Language

english

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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