Understanding criterion choice in hiring decisions from a prescriptive gender bias perspective.

Research has clearly established the effects of job sex-typing on employee selection decision processes (see Eagly and Karau (2002) for a review) which continue to impact modern work contexts, including the legal (Gorman, 2005), financial (Roth, 2006), and scientific professions (Neithardt, 2007). In a recent meta-analysis, male job candidates were preferred over females for male sex-typed occupations and females over males applying for female sex-typed jobs, although the discrimination was less for female applicants when additional job-relevant information (e.g., education, experience) was provided (Davison and Burke, 2000).

Over the years, researchers have investigated different organizational hiring strategies such as shifting standards (Biernat, 2003) and criterion choice (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005) in an attempt to better understand the persistent nature of job sex-typing. Recent research has differentiated between two types of gender bias--descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive gender bias in organizations is present to the extent female colleagues are described in stereotypical terms such as nurturing, caring, warm, etc. It is making assumptions about the characteristics of individuals based on their group membership. Recent research has not found evidence of descriptive gender bias in organizations (Gill, 2004; Hardin et al., 2002).

Although recent organizational research has not found evidence of descriptive gender bias, evidence of a more subtle and insidious form called prescriptive bias remains. Prescriptive gender bias is concerned with how females "should or should not act" in various situations. For example, employees with a prescriptive gender bias believe female colleagues should not be agentic (e.g., assertive, forceful, ambitious) but rather should be communal (e.g., affectionate, helpful, interpersonally sensitive) in their work behaviors. In fact, Gill (2004) argued that hiring strategies may involve this type of gender bias. Although job-relevant information may facilitate the elimination of descriptive gender bias, recent evidence indicates such information may be less useful in eliminating prescriptive gender bias (Gill, 2004). Additional research is needed to investigate the impact on hiring decisions of prescriptive gender bias which is thought to be less noticeable and more difficult to detect, but nonetheless may unwittingly affect our hiring perceptions.

The current study combines several research areas by investigating the process of criterion choice for sex-typed jobs utilizing a prescriptive gender bias perspective. The current research enhances our understanding of the persistent nature of job sex-typing, identifies contributing factors that impact criterion choice, and adds to our existing knowledge by operationalizing the presence of prescriptive gender bias in hiring decisions. The practical implications of these findings for organizations can be profound since prescriptive gender bias may prevent the most qualified job candidate from being selected and/or the hiring process may perpetuate a lack of organizational diversity, thus reinforcing gender stereotypes and job sex-typing.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Potential for Bias in Organizational Hiring Strategies

One biased strategy for hiring job candidates involves shifting the comparison standards used in the application of hiring criteria depending on the applicant gender (Biernat and Manis, 1994). According to the shifting standards model developed by Biernat and her colleagues, decision-makers use different norm expectations as the basis for making decisions involving female and male job candidates and athletes (Biernat, 2003; Biernat and Vescio, 2002). In their research, Biernat and colleagues found that decision-makers set higher ability standards but lower minimum competency standards for females in comparison to males when evaluating a simulated job applicant (Biernat and Kobrynowicz, 1997). In other words, when evaluating targets using dimensions subject to stereotyping (e.g., job competence, verbal ability, financial attainment), evaluators use within-category (i.e., male or female) reference points against which targets are compared. Biernat argues that this decision-making process can result in rating judgments that, initially, appear to contradict rather than reinforce stereotypes. This apparent masking of expected stereotyping effects, however, does not mean that stereotypes are not affecting judgments. Rather, according to Biernat, the way in which those stereotypes affect judgments is complex and can lead to decisions that both confirm and disconfirm apparent stereotypes. For example, in studies rating the job competence of females, Biernat and her colleagues (1997; 2001) argue that lower gender-specific initial expectations may result in more women making a short list for a job while subsequently those same women are less likely to meet the ultimate hiring requirements which are again gender-specific and favor males.

A second potentially biasing strategy involves the impact of criterion choice in hiring decisions. When allowed to review candidate information prior to developing hiring criteria, decision makers developed hiring criteria that favored congruency between candidate gender and job sex-type (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005). For example, male decision-makers preferred male candidates over female candidates for the position of police chief and female decision-makers preferred female candidates over male candidates for the position of women's studies professor. In this situation, the hiring process allowed decision-makers to tailor selection criterion to match idiosyncratic strengths of a desired applicant, regardless of traditional descriptive gender stereotypes (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005). For example, stereotypically feminine traits (e.g., family oriented) were considered more important when possessed by male candidates than female candidates when evaluating job candidates for the position of Police Chief. Conversely, when decision-makers developed hiring criteria prior to reviewing candidate information they did not favor male or female job candidates for the position of police chief (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005).

Based on prior research, organizations may unwittingly perpetuate the hiring of majority job candidates at the expense of qualified minority candidates. Decision-makers may rationalize using less objective criteria in support of their most preferred job candidate as the basis for their hiring decision, especially when a priori hiring criteria are not clearly defined (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005). Decision-makers may also utilize selection criteria that no longer accurately reflect important job requirements, thus perpetuating traditional job sex-type stereotypes (Guinier and Sturm, 2001). The process of developing "objective" criteria may allow decision-makers to feel objective in their hiring process while unknowingly discriminating against minority groups (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005). Additional research is needed to investigate the extent to which decision-makers change criteria in an attempt to garner evidence for the person with whom they are most comfortable or the candidate most congruent with traditional role expectations for the job.

Prescriptive Gender Bias in Organizations

Prescriptive gender bias has been found in research investigating management hiring decisions. For example, highly competent and successful women holding a male-dominated position experienced increased personal derogation and disliking in a simulated work situation which resulted in negative consequences for overall performance evaluation and reward allocation (Heilman et al., 2004). Similarly, agentic female job applicants were viewed as less socially skilled than agentic males which, resulted in hiring discrimination for "feminized" but not "masculinized" management positions (Rudman and Glick, 1999, 2001). Prescriptive gender bias was present in another study with women being more likely promoted from within their own company than hired from another organization, although women in higher levels of management received fewer promotions than women in lower positions (Lyness and Judiesch, 1999). Prescriptive gender bias was indicated by decision-makers requiring higher expectations for women than men on the same important decision criteria, thus shifting the norm reference point for women. Lyness and Judiesch (1999) argued that prescriptive bias explains why women are more likely to reach a plateau rather than the highest levels within an organization's hierarchy.

Gill (2004) suggests that prescriptive gender bias originates from the fact that a majority group needs a subordinate group to fulfill certain roles. Changing selection criteria may be an attempt to maintain the status quo, thus supporting gender job-type congruity. Therefore, employee selection decision-makers increasingly exhibit behaviors associated with prescriptive gender bias by using different criteria in order to support their preferred candidate (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005). Additional research is needed to further understand prescriptive gender bias, a form of bias more subtle and insidious, less easily detectable, and not well understood in comparison to descriptive gender bias.

Gaps in Previous Research

Although recent studies have investigated the process of criterion choice (Uhlmann and Cohen, 2005), research has not formally investigated the process of criterion choice utilizing a prescriptive gender bias perspective. While job-relevant information may be useful in eliminating traditional descriptive gender bias (Davison and Burke, 2000), it may not be sufficient in eliminating prescriptive gender bias (Gill, 2004). Additional research is needed to enhance our understanding of why this bias occurs, under which conditions is it more likely to occur, and how can it be curtailed during decision-making processes (Gill, 2004).

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