The Effect of Bias on Employee Suspicions of Coworker Guilt and Likelihood of Peer Reporting

Abstract

ABSTRACT We explored the association between bias and the perception of a suspect’s guilt in alleged workplace theft. After presenting a case to participants, we asked them to assess the guilt of four possible suspects: two Black (male and female) and two White (male and female). We measured implicit and explicit racial and gender bias, leveraging two implicit association tests adapted from Levinson, Cai, and Young (2010) and two established explicit bias scales. We found that explicit racial bias is significantly associated with the overall perceived likelihood of guilt of the Black male suspect, and implicit racial bias is associated with the probability of selecting the Black male suspect from among the four. These associations disappeared after we provided additional facts about the case and the suspects. We further found that implicit and explicit racial biases are associated with the likelihood of peer reporting in an external investigation. Data Availability: Data are available upon request. JEL Classifications: M49.