news.yale.edu Open in urlscan Pro
2a04:4e42:600::645  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

GET /search

<form role="search" action="/search" method="get" id="views-exposed-form-search-page" accept-charset="UTF-8">
  <div>
    <div class="container-inline">
      <h2 class="element-invisible">Search form</h2>
      <div class="form-item form-type-textfield form-item-search-api-views-fulltext">
        <input class="sb-search-input form-text" placeholder="Search YaleNews" type="text" id="edit-search-api-views-fulltext" name="search_api_views_fulltext" value="" size="30" maxlength="128" tabindex="-1" aria-hidden="true">
      </div>
      <div class="views-exposed-widget views-submit-button search-submit">
        <input class="sb-search-submit form-submit" type="submit" id="edit-submit-search" value="Apply"><span class="sb-icon-search"><span class="visually_hidden">Search</span></span>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</form>

Text Content

Skip to main content
 * calendar
 * subscribe

 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Instagram
 * RSS Feeds


YALENEWS

Explore Topics
 * Alumni
 * Arts & Humanities
 * Business
 * Campus & Community
 * Environment
 * Health & Medicine
 * International
 * Law
 * Science & Technology
 * Social Sciences
 * In Focus
 * In Memoriam


SEARCH FORM


Search


YALE STUDY SHOWS CLASS BIAS IN HIRING BASED ON FEW SECONDS OF SPEECH

Economic inequality in hiring is in part driven by snap perceptions of job
applicants’ speech patterns, new Yale research shows.
By Mike Cummings
October 21, 2019
Share this with Facebook Share this with Twitter Share this with LinkedIn Share
this with Email Print this

(© stock.adobe.com)

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.”

If we want to move to a more equitable society, then we must contend with these
ingrained psychological processes.

Michael Kraus

The researchers based their findings on five separate studies. The first four
examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on a few
seconds of speech. They found that reciting seven random words is sufficient to
allow people to discern the speaker’s social class with above-chance accuracy.
They discovered that speech adhering to subjective standards for English as well
as digital standards — i.e. the voices used in tech products like the Amazon
Alexa or Google Assistant — is associated with both actual and perceived higher
social class. The researchers also showed that pronunciation cues in an
individual’s speech communicate their social status more accurately than the
content of their speech.

The fifth study examined how these speech cues influence hiring. Twenty
prospective job candidates from varied current and childhood socioeconomic
backgrounds were recruited from the New Haven community to interview for an
entry-level lab manager position at Yale. Prior to sitting for a formal job
interview, the candidates each recorded a conversation in which they were asked
to briefly describe themselves. A sample of 274 individuals with hiring
experience either listened to the audio or read transcripts of the recordings.
The hiring managers were asked to assess the candidates’ professional qualities,
starting salary, signing bonus, and perceived social class based solely on the
brief pre-interview discussion without reviewing the applicants’ job interview
responses or resumes.  

The hiring managers who listened to the audio recordings were more likely to
accurately assess socioeconomic status than those who read transcripts,
according to the study. Devoid of any information about the candidates’ actual
qualifications, the hiring managers judged the candidates from higher social
classes as more likely to be competent for the job, and a better fit for it than
the applicants from lower social classes. Moreover, they assigned the applicants
from higher social classes more lucrative salaries and signing bonuses than the
candidates with lower social status.

“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.”

Kraus co-authored the paper with graduate students Brittany Torrez and Jun Won
Park, and research associate Fariba Ghayebi.

Related

 * Americans vastly overestimate progress toward racial economic equality
 * Study shows gender bias persists in performance-driven industry
 * Visible wealth makes economic inequality worse, experiments show

Business

Social Sciences

Share this with Facebook Share this with Twitter Share this with LinkedIn Share
this with Email Print this

Media Contact

Bess Connolly : elizabeth.connolly@yale.edu,


MORE NEWS


WITH TRAPPED WAVES, RESEARCHERS RESOLVE A LONGSTANDING DEBATE


PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING MOSTLY CANCELS OUT AT NATIONAL LEVEL, STUDY SHOWS


FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT CLUSTER HEADACHE


KOH ARGUES AT THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ON BEHALF OF UKRAINE

 * Show More Articles

Yale
 * Browse Archives
 * Contact Us
 * For the Media
 * It’s Your Yale
 * Apply to Yale
 * Give to Yale

Managed by the  Office of Public Affairs & Communications

Copyright © 2023 Yale University · All rights reserved · Privacy policy ·
Accessibility at Yale

 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Instagram
 * RSS Feeds

Yale on Instagram
✓
Thanks for sharing!
AddToAny
More…