Stereotypes Podcast

The host, Avani Srivastava, introduces her guest, Kate Morris, who is studying psychology at The Ohio State University. They discuss the use of indirect measures to assess stereotypes and biases. Kate shares her experience with implicit biases in sorority recruitment and how they used the implicit association test. They also discuss a study on the role of automatic stereotypes in hiring decisions, revealing bias against obese candidates. They suggest taking implicit bias tests and having a team of hiring managers to reduce bias. Avani emphasizes the importance of company culture in job searches. They conclude by inviting listeners to tune in next week for a discussion on direct measures of bias. Hello, everyone. This is Smashing Through Stereotypes, and I'm your host, Avani Srivastava. And for today, we have a special guest with us. Her name is Kate Morris, and she is currently studying psychology at The Ohio State University. You can say hi, Kate. Hello, everyone. Now, for our previous episodes, we mostly focused on discussing existing stereotypes in the world that people may not know they display or use to judge others. But we haven't talked about the ways that people may use indirect measures to assess stereotypes and bias yet. Using an indirect measure allows for researchers to study behavior by directly observing or asking participants to self-report their answers. They cannot falsify their answers this way because most of the time, the indirect measures are studied by looking at an automatic body response. I'm extremely excited to introduce Kate Morris to this episode because not only is she a fellow student here at Ohio State, but she is also part of my sorority. Our sorority was actually one of the first places where I was introduced to one of the most popular methods of testing implicit behaviors or biases. Kate, do you want to tell us a little bit more about our first introduction to implicit biases? I would love to, Avani. So, recruitment for sorority is one of the busiest times of the year for us. It starts right at the end of our winter break where most sorority members come back to campus a few days early for days full of workshops and practicing for the upcoming recruitment season. And during this time, we learn about what conversations topics to have with the girls when we're recruiting and also talking about what character traits we're searching for in a future sister. Yeah, I feel like it's really important for us to all sit down together and talk about what traits are most important to us so we're all on the same page when we start recruiting. Yeah, I totally agree. It also helps solidify to our members that although we may meet someone and look at their appearance or social medias, but we are trying to get past those initial indirect biases and learn about the values of the girl and get more below the surface level. And we're trying to find out what traits she holds most important to her and what friendships she would like to form. I feel like that's a really difficult message to convey to around, what is it, 130 people when they're all trying to come together, especially when they could all make different judgments or have different opinions. But was there anything that you guys did throughout the week of practice and workshops that you think made a big difference to your experience? Yeah, we did a bunch of different things. I'd say one of the most impactful workshops we did, our DEI chair introduced us to the implicit association test, which measured our unconscious biases with many different concepts regarding race, gender, sexuality, skin tone, weight, and so many other things. And they had us take multiple of these tests and then talk about our results with smaller groups so we would be more comfortable with sharing. It can be a little bit awkward to talk about, but it really helped break down those barriers. That is so wonderful. And I feel like that could also apply to most workplaces. I feel like they should be taking those tests as well. It seems like a great idea to sit down and go over what you're looking for, even with job interviews. I just think that's another situation where someone could have an implicit bias and make initial judgments because of our race or gender, and that could have a large impact on that interview. Yeah, for sure. I remember someone in my group was talking about how their results showed they had a slight preference to lighter skin, even if they didn't even realize it. And it was a really good topic to be aware of when getting ready to basically have these many – they weren't for a job, but for sorority membership to have these many interviews with over 20 girls per person for multiple days straight. Definitely. And I feel like a lot of people might underestimate recruitment, but I feel like it's helped me to develop those great interview skills and helped me think a little bit quicker on my feet. I was looking more into those implicit association tests before we talked today, and I actually found a study completed by Jens Aggerstrom and Don Olof Ruth, which discussed the role automatic stereotypes play in the hiring process. Oh, interesting. I would love to hear more. Well, the researchers conducted two experiments involving hiring managers as participants tasked with evaluating job candidates, and some of those candidates were portrayed as obese. For the first experiment, there was a made-up hypothetical job position, and participants were asked to look through resumes that were identical for both candidates. The only difference was the photograph of each candidate where one was obese and one was not. The results revealed that obese candidates were less likely to be recommended for hire compared to the non-obese candidates, indicating a bias against obese individuals in hiring decisions. For the second experiment, they had all the hiring managers take the IAT for obesity, and indeed, they found the participants who exhibited stronger automatic stereotypes against obese individuals were more likely to discriminate against obese candidates in the hiring process. Once again, this is for implicit bias, so these hiring managers may not realize that they are choosing the candidate who is not obese for that reason, but yeah. Yeah, that's so interesting, especially as a, you know, current second-semester senior undergoing the interview process, and I'm, you know, pretty deep into my job search right now. It really makes me think about what unconscious biases my interviewers may have and if that's affecting whether or not I receive a job offer or a second interview. Do you think there's anything that we can do to make sure that the playing field is more even? Yeah, I mean, this study that I just talked about was completed in 2011, and the IAT was actually created in 1998, so we have been aware of unconscious bias and implicit bias for some time, but I think it's helpful for anyone who's in any position interacting with others to take these tests and reflect on whether they have any implicit biases that they didn't know about. I feel like also during a hiring process, it can be helpful to have a team of hiring managers instead of just one, so you can communicate effectively with that. Yeah, I think having a group is definitely ideal, so it's not one, you know, one single perspective, and many people who are going through the interview process usually try and focus on what their accomplishments are or having great, you know, people skills, but you truly can have all of that and be a great candidate and still not be chosen for the job, which is unfortunate but true, and thankfully, I've studied psychology for the past four years, and I feel like it really genuinely has helped me throughout my job search. Not only am I able to reflect on what my interview is searching for, but the classes I've taken have helped me also find what I'm looking for. This past semester, I took psychology in the workplace, and it really taught me to look at what company culture looks like, and something that really stands out to me when researching a company is if they've hired a third-party organization that specializes in workplace relationships to come in and workshop with the team. Company culture outside of, you know, basic logistics like salary and 401k contributions is the most important factor for me personally throughout my job search, so when I see that a really strong effort has been put in to improve the company's organizational culture, I'm way more inclined to want to work there over a company who doesn't value culture as much. It's wonderful to hear that that's something that you're looking at, and that you have those skill sets and are able to utilize them to build that strong future and foundation for yourself. I feel like it's really important for a job like right out of college. It's not always everyone's favorite, their first job, but it's great that you're looking at that, and I'm glad to hear that studying psychology here at Ohio State has been impactful for you, and I know you have an interview tomorrow, so thank you, everyone, for tuning in to Smashing Through Stereotypes today, and we hope you will join us next week when we talk about more direct measures of bias. Thanks.