Social class background, disjoint agency, and hiring decisions

Abstract

To promote upward mobility for the working-class, much effort has focused on making higher education more widely accessible. However, upward mobility is also powerfully determined by processes that occur after college, when individuals launch their work careers. In the current study, college students who were about to enter the labor market completed mock job interviews while being videotaped. Supporting cultural mismatch theory (Stephens, Townsend, et al., 2012), participants from working-class backgrounds displayed less disjoint agentic behavior during their interviews (e.g., less assertive behavior). This led observers to evaluate them as less intelligent and socio-emotionally skilled, and led professional hiring managers to view them as less worthy of hire – even though working-class individuals were as intelligent and more socio-emotionally skilled than their upper-class counterparts (Study 1). However, when hiring managers were told to place more value on cooperation and teamwork rather than competition and individualism, individuals who displayed low disjoint agency did not face the same bias (Study 2). This suggests that the bias against individuals from working-class backgrounds observed in Study 1 can be mitigated.