People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why?
Previous research has shown that people care less about men than about women who are left behind. We show that this finding extends to the domain of labor market discrimination: In identical scenarios, people judge discrimination against women more morally bad than discrimination against men. This r...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021-09-01
|
| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.675776/full |
| _version_ | 1819071992663375872 |
|---|---|
| author | Eberhard Feess Jan Feld Jan Feld Shakked Noy |
| author_facet | Eberhard Feess Jan Feld Jan Feld Shakked Noy |
| author_sort | Eberhard Feess |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Previous research has shown that people care less about men than about women who are left behind. We show that this finding extends to the domain of labor market discrimination: In identical scenarios, people judge discrimination against women more morally bad than discrimination against men. This result holds in a representative sample of the US population and in a larger but not representative sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk) respondents. We test if this gender gap is driven by statistical fairness discrimination, a process in which people use the gender of the victim to draw inferences about other characteristics which matter for their fairness judgments. We test this explanation with a survey experiment in which we explicitly hold information about the victim of discrimination constant. Our results provide only mixed support for the statistical fairness discrimination explanation. In our representative sample, we see no meaningful or significant effect of the information treatments. By contrast, in our Mturk sample, we see that providing additional information partly reduces the effect of the victim’s gender on judgment of the discriminator. While people may engage in statistical fairness discrimination, this process is unlikely to be an exhaustive explanation for why discrimination against women is judged as worse. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T17:30:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b12a79086e154f8f9bfae6d7828dccc8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T17:30:39Z |
| publishDate | 2021-09-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-b12a79086e154f8f9bfae6d7828dccc82022-12-21T18:55:55ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782021-09-011210.3389/fpsyg.2021.675776675776People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why?Eberhard Feess0Jan Feld1Jan Feld2Shakked Noy3School of Economics and Finance, Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New ZealandSchool of Economics and Finance, Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New ZealandInstitute of Labor Economics, Bonn, GermanySchool of Economics and Finance, Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New ZealandPrevious research has shown that people care less about men than about women who are left behind. We show that this finding extends to the domain of labor market discrimination: In identical scenarios, people judge discrimination against women more morally bad than discrimination against men. This result holds in a representative sample of the US population and in a larger but not representative sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk) respondents. We test if this gender gap is driven by statistical fairness discrimination, a process in which people use the gender of the victim to draw inferences about other characteristics which matter for their fairness judgments. We test this explanation with a survey experiment in which we explicitly hold information about the victim of discrimination constant. Our results provide only mixed support for the statistical fairness discrimination explanation. In our representative sample, we see no meaningful or significant effect of the information treatments. By contrast, in our Mturk sample, we see that providing additional information partly reduces the effect of the victim’s gender on judgment of the discriminator. While people may engage in statistical fairness discrimination, this process is unlikely to be an exhaustive explanation for why discrimination against women is judged as worse.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.675776/fullgenderdiscriminationstatistical fairness discriminationemployment discrimination (gender)moral judgments |
| spellingShingle | Eberhard Feess Jan Feld Jan Feld Shakked Noy People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why? Frontiers in Psychology gender discrimination statistical fairness discrimination employment discrimination (gender) moral judgments |
| title | People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why? |
| title_full | People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why? |
| title_fullStr | People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why? |
| title_full_unstemmed | People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why? |
| title_short | People Judge Discrimination Against Women More Harshly Than Discrimination Against Men – Does Statistical Fairness Discrimination Explain Why? |
| title_sort | people judge discrimination against women more harshly than discrimination against men does statistical fairness discrimination explain why |
| topic | gender discrimination statistical fairness discrimination employment discrimination (gender) moral judgments |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.675776/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT eberhardfeess peoplejudgediscriminationagainstwomenmoreharshlythandiscriminationagainstmendoesstatisticalfairnessdiscriminationexplainwhy AT janfeld peoplejudgediscriminationagainstwomenmoreharshlythandiscriminationagainstmendoesstatisticalfairnessdiscriminationexplainwhy AT janfeld peoplejudgediscriminationagainstwomenmoreharshlythandiscriminationagainstmendoesstatisticalfairnessdiscriminationexplainwhy AT shakkednoy peoplejudgediscriminationagainstwomenmoreharshlythandiscriminationagainstmendoesstatisticalfairnessdiscriminationexplainwhy |