Hierarchy profiling: How and why a job's perceived impact on inequality affects racial hiring evaluations

Abstract

Prior work suggests that high-status group members are favored for hierarchy-maintaining roles, while low-status group members are favored for hierarchy-attenuating ones—but the mechanisms driving this phenomenon are largely unknown. The current work examines this phenomenon in the domain of race, testing three potential mechanisms: role status, representativeness, and hierarchy profiling. According to a role status account, hierarchy-maintaining roles are seen as higher-status than hierarchy-attenuating ones, driving effects. A representativeness account suggests that hierarchy-maintaining roles are seen as including more White (or fewer minority) job-holders than hierarchy-attenuating ones, driving effects. Finally, a hierarchy profiling account suggests that evaluators see the typical hire for hierarchy-maintaining roles as more conservative (or less liberal), driving effects. In three studies, White evaluators rated a White male applicant a better fit for a hierarchy-maintaining role (e.g., CEO of a hedge fund) than a hierarchy-attenuating one (e.g., CEO of a nonprofit). There was, however, no impact of a role's perceived impact on inequality on ratings of Black male or Latino applicant fit (Studies 1–3). This effect persisted regardless of role status (Study 2), negating a role status account. However, a final study supported representativeness and hierarchy profiling accounts. White evaluators rated the typical hire for a hierarchy-maintaining role as more White and conservative, mediating ratings of White applicant fit (Study 3). Three supplemental studies replicated all results. Findings reveal the mechanisms that can hold social hierarchy in place, keeping high-status group members in hierarchy-maintaining roles and low-status group members in hierarchy-attenuating ones.