GO WITH YOUR GUT: A THEORY OF EMOTION AND INEQUALITY IN HIRING

Abstract

In the following paper, I present labor market stratification as an emotional process fundamentally rooted in micro-social interaction. Drawing from Randall Collins’ theory of interaction ritual (2004), I provide a case study of hiring in elite professional service firms to analyze how evaluators’ “gut” feelings and emotional responses to candidates during job interviews affect hiring outcomes and inequalities. This analysis represents the first empirical application of Collins’ intriguing but heretofore untested theoretical propositions about the role of emotion in social stratification. After demonstrating how feelings of excitement and emotional energy generated in interaction serve as crucial mechanisms of candidate evaluation, I then extend Collins’ work by proposing a theoretical model of emotional energy development in job interviews. I highlight the mechanisms and characteristics that tend to produce, sustain, and inhibit feelings of emotional energy in interaction as well as parse out the various phases at which energy gains and losses are most consequential for influencing hiring outcomes and inequalities. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for both interaction ritual theory as well as recent research on organizational inequalities.